Mining?
Any reason for the mATX motherboard? It stands to reason that they lack expansion slots due to the form factor. Doesn't mean any ATX will have them slots, though.
I was gathering all the parts at once on a small budget and said "ah, itll support 5950x, eh, this is enough" but I see it isnt. the 2nd nvme is under the gpu and the gpu is really up against the last slot so if I can slip a riser card in, itd be touching the gpu fan shroud. I prefer atx but this is what i could get
also makes no sense the names for boards. mini is the smaller size then my b550m and micro is my size mb but in real life micro means smaller then mini. its as if they made it up as they went along
Mining?
Any reason for the mATX motherboard? It stands to reason that they lack expansion slots due to the form factor. Doesn't mean any ATX will have them slots, though.
how mining? each card today is at least 2 card slots so why the spacing is so weird?
All of that stuff is usually in the specs page, as is what you can use at the same time. As in if you have a SSD in the M2_3 you'll loose PCIe_3 or whatever, which is the thing you really have to read up on. That is what really bugs me about motherboards now. Just because a board has 6 SATA ports, 2 M2 slots and 4 PCIe slots it does not mean I can use them.
there is a total amount of lanes to a mb? and I have to use by priority for myself?
meaning if I want 2 gpu 2 nvme and perhaps a sound card AND usb riser card, then something will take a hit or I wont be able to use them all?
im trying to understand how it works and how to "budget" the lanes. im not certain ill go with this, maybe go with x570
but heres the specs. can someone decipher it? if I want to run 2 gpu, 1 riser usb c card and a sound card, 2 nvme and 1hdd, im guessing speeds will be in the toilet?
You don't say why you need more pcie slots or what for, that would help, you also mention audio, a sound card would give you optical out without having to buy a brand new motherboard, without knowing what you want to use extra pcie slots for is kinda the blind leading the blind
yes youre right.
I am considering but not certain yet, depends if I can find 1 or 2 gpu at the prices I have limited myself to. so 2 gpu, a sound card, a riser usb c, 2 nvme, 1 sata HDD.
I think perhaps an x570 may be able to give more. but im with all these components added im certain speeds would be down the drain
how much would a decent audio card cost? $50?
why are they able to add decent to good (not great) audio in the MB vs pci cards I see for TONS of money. ive never connected to a mb audio and said, hmm this is absolutely shet and need to get a sound card. it does the job and for sure no audiophile card, but good enough.
@inquisitor1
from what i have used for my builds, and for customers, Gb tends to have "less" vs what others offered in the same price range, at least in the past, and after having a +300$ x570, never again (for me).
asus seemed good on hw side (couple friends only use that brand) but i never liked their bios layout on x570 boards.
used almost 10 msi, and even the lower tier were fine for avg user trying to not spend much.
for me, ill probably stay with msi mb for now, but then again the MEGs are their top boards.
@JoeTheDestroyer
i have six m.2 plus four pcie slots, and no limits on how/what i use, because i can switch stuff in bios, and not much to do with how many of each ports the mb has.
ok Thank you Waldor, fwill give msi a look. not sold on asrock and I vowed years back I would not buy asus again. so ill look at msi and see whats even available for order on amazon. I appreciate the help
I was hesitant like OP about Asrock, but went ahead with one in my upgrade last year (X670E PG Lighting w/ 7950X3D).
It's been rock solid for the 1.5yr I've had it so far.
The only difficulty I encountered was during initial setup it took some fiddling to get my memory settings completely stable, but as far as I can tell, that's more an AM5 / DDR5 thing rather than this specific mb.
Flexibility. Some of us prefer to decide for ourselves what our pcie lanes are used for, rather than having them forcibly dedicated to extraneous m.2 slots or the likes of usb4.
This is one of the reasons I chose the mb I did, it came w/ 4 slots I could use for whatever I wanted. I'm currently using one w/ a u.2 adapter card holding an optane drive, it would have been far more awkward to mount the drive using the m.2 adapter cable it came with. I also have sufficient slots and lanes to upgrade to 10gb ethernet later on, should I wish to.
I wasnt asking like im upset but really scratching my head. the spacing seems so odd and random.