Question about ASRock Z790 PCIe Bifurcation
Question about ASRock Z790 PCIe Bifurcation
I'm checking the Z790 PG Lightning/D4 specs to see if the PCIe 4.0 x16 port allows PCIe bifurcation. I plan to connect it to a 13600KF and switch if needed. The slot will also support a PCIe connection to a M.2 card with four drives. Let me know if you have any questions!
Are there specific situations where a m.2 card becomes necessary? Usually you can connect your GPU to PCIE 4.0 8x and see results. But is there a scenario where the three or four m.2 drives on the motherboard aren’t sufficient? Particularly with a 13600KF, what are you really aiming for in terms of NVMe performance?
I’m already running two on my current system but got a great deal ($90) on the PCIe card and 4 2tb M.2’s. It would mostly be used as a university project archive as I tend to need to pull data from it regularly, I would also put a lot of my steam library on it too. Also wildly cheaper and probably quieter than an 8tb Sata SSD or HDD. For the PCIe Bifurcation it’d be running the PCIe 4.0 slot in 4x4x4x4. Edit: if it can’t do it i’d take the two best performing drives and sell the card and other drives. Edited June 11, 2023 by PhazzeeYeehaw
I understand your question about the ASRock Z790 PG Lightning/D4 and PCIe support. Let me clarify that.
I didn't find it in the BIOS guide, which suggests the feature isn't available. It seems the board doesn't back it up. In reality, none of the z790 models I checked support it. My z590 board can handle up to x8+x4+x4, allowing a maximum of 3 NVMes in that slot. This matches the description ASUS provides for their 4 NVMe breakout boards, though few consumer boards with similar features let you use all four at once.
It seems like the optimal solution involves pairing a X99 and an Xeon setup, unfortunately.
It looks like x299 boards tend to perform better than z790 in terms of luck, though I didn’t explore that aspect before.
I’d prefer to go with X299 as a platform, though the purchase price feels quite steep. It looks like 10th gen X99 LGA 2066 chips can handle 4x4x4x4 splits if they have 48 lanes. Thanks for your insights, but for now, I’m leaning toward a compact SATA SSD array.