Modern motherboards with 6+ usable PCIe slots?

[DudeBeFishing]

I'm looking for non workstation motherboards with 6+ usable PCIe slots, decent VRM, and good memory overclocking capabilities. The slots lane count doesn't matter, it just needs 6+ that can all be used at the same time with a dual slot GPU. If 6 slots, the slot under the GPU should be blank. Bonus if it has the back cut out on the x1 slot so it can accept longer cards. AM4/AM5 for AMD or LGA1700 for Intel. DDR4 or DDR5. If DDR4, it needs to run at 4000+, otherwise I'm better off with DDR5.

I'm looking for a board similar to these, but with better memory overclocking. If you have had good success with faster RAM on an older board with this slot layout, let me know.

ASRock Fatal1ty B450 GAMING K4 ATX AM4 Motherboard

pcpartpicker.com

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/XQgzK8/asus-rog-strix-b450-f-gaming-atx-am4-motherboard-strix-b450-f-gaming

I know there's workstation boards with more PCIe slots, but they cost more money than the CPU/Mobo/RAM combined compared to desktop. The workstation CPUs tend to be clocked lower so not as good for gaming, and I don't do video production.

 

[A Computer Guy]

I'm looking for non workstation motherboards with 6+ usable PCIe slots, decent VRM, and good memory overclocking capabilities. The slots lane count doesn't matter, it just needs 6+ that can all be used at the same time with a dual slot GPU. If 6 slots, the slot under the GPU should be blank. Bonus if it has the back cut out on the x1 slot so it can accept longer cards. AM4/AM5 for AMD or LGA1700 for Intel. DDR4 or DDR5. If DDR4, it needs to run at 4000+, otherwise I'm better off with DDR5.

I'm looking for a board similar to these, but with better memory overclocking. If you have had good success with faster RAM on an older board with this slot layout, let me know.

ASRock Fatal1ty B450 GAMING K4 ATX AM4 Motherboard

pcpartpicker.com

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/XQgzK8/asus-rog-strix-b450-f-gaming-atx-am4-motherboard-strix-b450-f-gaming

I know there's workstation boards with more PCIe slots, but they cost more money than the CPU/Mobo/RAM combined compared to desktop. The workstation CPUs tend to be clocked lower so not as good for gaming, and I don't do video production.

What are you using all the slots for?

 

[ir_cow]

So AMD Threadripper or intel sapphire rapids is what your looking for.

 

[DudeBeFishing]

So AMD Threadripper or intel sapphire rapids is what your looking for.

Most AMD Threadripper only have 4 slots usable without a riser. A few have 5. I'm looking for 6. The price is a bit steep, but doable. Intel Sapphire Rapids cost more than my car.

What are you using all the slots for?

- GPU (2 Slots)
- 10G NIC SFP+
- USB3 Controller (dedicated to mouse)
- Analog Capture card

That's just moving stuff from my current build. I know there's going to be yet another USB standard released at some point, that's another card. That's 6 slots used, since the GPU is 2 slots.

 

[ir_cow]

Look into mining motherboards, they have a ton of 1x slots.

 

[chrcoluk]

Yeah dont think you finding a mainstream board with 6 slots, mine has 5, but it seems my board is an outlier, the trend moving forward is reducing the slots.

 

[datnoz]

@chrcoluk said it so asrock b450 pro4 or asrock b450 steel legend or the b450 tuf pro you get it (but i seriously doubt on the 4000+ ram for the b450)
mainly mid-end gaming mobo so b450/b550 and tuf, gigabyte gaming x, asus prime maybe and the others that i don't think about.
I don't know your use of the pc but is it really a criteria of having one slot more for the usb3 even thought the mobo has plenty (if you go for b550) is 8 not enough for you

 

[unwind-protect]

Many Supermicro dual 2066 (Xeon v3/v4 e5) have 6 or even 7 slots.

 

[DudeBeFishing]

@chrcoluk said it so asrock b450 pro4 or asrock b450 steel legend or the b450 tuf pro you get it (but i seriously doubt on the 4000+ ram for the b450)
mainly mid-end gaming mobo so b450/b550 and tuf, gigabyte gaming x, asus prime maybe and the others that i don't think about.
I don't know your use of the pc but is it really a criteria of having one slot more for the usb3 even thought the mobo has plenty (if you go for b550) is 8 not enough for you

I've had issues with my USB dac crackling when too many USB devices are on the same controller. I think it has to do with the 1000hz poling rate of my mouse and keyboard. A second USB card will help avoid this.

Those Asrock boards seem to be the best alternative. If I get a 5800X3D the extra cache should help minimize the lower memory speed performance.

 

[datnoz]

Those Asrock boards seem to be the best alternative. If I get a 5800X3D the extra cache should help minimize the lower memory speed performance.

You should get the asus board or the asrock b550 and then you can oc the ram to 4000+

 

[DudeBeFishing]

None of the 500 series have more than 5 usable PCIe slots. Many have less than 5.

 

[ir_cow]

You want that many slots it's either the HEDT platform or a mining MB with a bunch of 1x slots.

 

[damric]

What's with the recent uptick in multiple slots interest? I see multiple active threads about this. Is this for mining or AI or something?

 

[A Computer Guy]

What's with the recent uptick in multiple slots interest? I see multiple active threads about this. Is this for mining or AI or something?

I've probably mentioned it a few times. In my case it's about long term upgrades. For example being able to add in more NVMe expansion, USBC expansion, 10GB nic etc...

 

[ir_cow]

The MSI X670E ACE does all of that. I currently have 6 NVMe drives, 2x platter drives, 2x SSDs, 10Gb NiC, and a sound card. With the platform getting at least 2 more CPUs, it has some long term potential.

Only thing missing is USB4, which instead of a sound card you could do that.

MSI MEG X670E ACE Review

Featuring a 22+2+1 VRM setup using 90 A power stages, DDR5 support, PCIe Gen 5, six M.2 sockets and loads of high-speed USB ports, the MSI MEG X670E ACE is the premium motherboard everyone is talking about. Follow along as we take a deep dive and check out all the features this motherboard has...

www.techpowerup.com

 

[DudeBeFishing]

What's with the recent uptick in multiple slots interest? I see multiple active threads about this. Is this for mining or AI or something?

Probably because there are no 6+ slot motherboards. If a few 7 slot consumer boards existed, those few people would just buy them instead of talking about it.

The MSI X670E ACE does all of that. I currently have 6 NVMe drives, 2x platter drives, 2x SSDs, 10Gb NiC, and a sound card. With the platform getting at least 2 more CPUs, it has some long term potential.

Only thing missing is USB4, which instead of a sound card you could do that.

MSI MEG X670E ACE Review

Featuring a 22+2+1 VRM setup using 90 A power stages, DDR5 support, PCIe Gen 5, six M.2 sockets and loads of high-speed USB ports, the MSI MEG X670E ACE is the premium motherboard everyone is talking about. Follow along as we take a deep dive and check out all the features this motherboard has...

www.techpowerup.com

It only has 3 slots.

 

[ir_cow]

Probably because there are no 6+ slot motherboards. If a few 7 slot consumer boards existed, those few people would just buy them instead of talking about it.

It only has 3 slots.

Correct, but you don't need extra slots if most of the stuff you are wanting is already onboard.

We are going around in circles here. If you want 6x x16 slots, HEDT is the only way to go. If you are just looking for a MB that has 10GbE and NVME sockets. You will find a lot of higher end AMD X670e do this. You could just buy a used TR4 Threadripper. Not great performance and no upgradability, but it has all the PCIe slots you need.

 

[silentbogo]

6+ usable slots is a bit of a stretch for mainstream boards.
ATX allows for 7 slots total, which in case of a dual-slot GPU and some allowance for airflow means you can have 5 devices(safely), or 6 at most if you cram everything possible.
The only one that comes to mind is Gigabyte Z390D, which back in a day was a cheap board of choice for miners. For sAM4 I don't remember anything with similar slot layout.
Your best bet is to switch to any HEDT platform, or drop some of your devices.

For example, having a USB3.0 controller dedicated to a mouse is not necessary at all. Some boards have dedicated 2.0 ports for input devices.

I know there's going to be yet another USB standard released at some point, that's another card.

Don't worry about it. There's barely anything on the market that can saturate USB3, and it'll be at least half-a-decade or more before we see a usable number of USB4 devices that may or may not be bound by bandwidth. You'll probably upgrade your rig again by that point.

Just dropping the USB controller widens your choice of boards significantly.

Though, I've been browsing through some AM5 boards and it's even more depressing over there.... Big-ass ATX boards with only 2 or 3 PCIe slots...

 

[Assimilator]

As others have said, you are not going to find what you need on mainstream boards for the simple reason that no mainstream board with this number of PCIe slots exists. A lot of this is to do with NVMe drives taking up space, but it's also related to how motherboard manufacturers are now staffed with marketers and accountants instead of engineers. Making boards look "cool" while stripping useful features like PCIe slots out, so that they can force consumers to buy HEDT models, is the name of the game. And most of those HEDT boards won't even have the number of slots you're looking for either!

Honestly this is a terrible time to be a PC enthusiast. Basic functionality has taken a back seat to rampant profiteering in all areas - whether it's motherboard manufacturers nickel-and-diming on PCIe slots, GPU manufacturers hardware-gating features and putting prices up just because (NVIDIA DLSS), or CPU manufacturers arbitrarily limiting the number of PCIe lanes and how they're allowed to be used (AMD AM5).

 

[chrcoluk]

What's with the recent uptick in multiple slots interest? I see multiple active threads about this. Is this for mining or AI or something?

I think the demand has always been there, it just seems to have recently become visible on TPU, I think its possibly explained by people on older systems now looking to upgrade and noticing the removal of slots on new boards.

I know of a fair amount of people who have not upgraded their platform purely because of pci-e slot layout on new boards.

As assimilator said, marketing is king now (alongside segmentation), if we see a board reviewed with good pci-e connectivity but low M.2 then the reviewer calls it out, but if its the other way round they dont call out the lack of pci-e, I dont know if this is intentional or not but its happening and hence we seeing the trend changes.

The logical step forward in the PC space was U.2 ports added to support NVME or to use actual pci-e slot drives (which was happening I remember gigabyte released one), with pci-e maintained, but that allows server builders to use desktop boards too easily which loses revenue for the manufacturers. There also seems to be a sizable anti cable crowd, like cables are the worst thing in the world.

Also this

Seagate Mechanical HDD with U.2 NVMe Interface Pictured, Signals the Decline of SAS 12G

Here's one of the first pictures of a mechanical HDD with NVMe interface. Seagate is apparently in production of an Exos-series Enterprise HDD featuring U.2 NVMe interface where one would expect SAS 12 Gbps. We seriously doubt if the HDD is fast enough to take advantage of U.2 NVMe (at least 32...

www.techpowerup.com

U.2 could have eventually replaced some SATA ports if spindles are coming out for NVME.

It wouldnt surprise me if in a decade we have U.2 only (consumer crippled version), and the industry looks back at this era as a mistake.

 

[Wirko]

Here's a list from the Geizhals database, maybe it can be of some help ... but it only lists boards currently available in Germany and a couple other European countries.

Mainboards mit PCIe Slots ohne M.2 gesamt: ab 6x Preisvergleich Geizhals EU

Preisvergleich und Bewertungen für Mainboards mit PCIe Slots ohne M.2 gesamt: ab 6x

geizhals.eu

Edit: if for some reason you don't see the same results, these are the boards in the list:
MSI B550 Gaming Gen3
MSI B450-A Pro Max
MSI PRO B550-P GEN3
ASRock X570S PG Riptide
ASUS ROG Strix B450-F Gaming II

On the Intel side, only old pre-Alder Lake boards could possibly meet your criteria, but you're not buying that, are you?

 

[Assimilator]

Here's a list from the Geizhals database, maybe it can be of some help ... but it only lists boards currently available in Germany and a couple other European countries.

Mainboards mit PCIe Slots ohne M.2 gesamt: ab 6x Preisvergleich Geizhals EU

Preisvergleich und Bewertungen für Mainboards mit PCIe Slots ohne M.2 gesamt: ab 6x

geizhals.eu

On the Intel side, only old pre-Alder Lake boards could possibly meet your criteria, but you're not buying that, are you?

The only board that is somewhat modern there is the ASRock X570S PG Riptide and even that is gimped... three x16 slots but the lower two are electrically x4 and the bottommost one is limited to x2, WHY EVEN BOTHER FFS. Some of the other boards have an x16 and x8... but no USB-C internal connector.

That search is legitimately amazing though.

 

[Frick]

The only board that is somewhat modern there is the ASRock X570S PG Riptide and even that is gimped... three x16 slots but the lower two are electrically x4 and the bottommost one is limited to x2, WHY EVEN BOTHER FFS. Some of the other boards have an x16 and x8... but no USB-C internal connector.

That search is legitimately amazing though.

That is still a ton of bandwidth. What are you doing that can even make use of it all?

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

I've had issues with my USB dac crackling when too many USB devices are on the same controller. I think it has to do with the 1000hz poling rate of my mouse and keyboard. A second USB card will help avoid this.

Those Asrock boards seem to be the best alternative. If I get a 5800X3D the extra cache should help minimize the lower memory speed performance.

Most motherboards have at least two usb controller chips, just don't plug everything into one?!.

Your looking for something that doesn't exist or I would have bought it.
That's given your caveats of cheap and desktop not server or workstation based.

 

[Totally]

What's with the recent uptick in multiple slots interest? I see multiple active threads about this. Is this for mining or AI or something?

Peeps actually wanting to use add-on cards, there were more options a few years ago than now in this upgrade cycle. I ran into this, but sidestepped the issue by building a smaller pc that handles video capture and networking.