ASRock Intros Blazing Quad M.2 Riser Card: Four Gen 5 M.2 Slots from Your PCIe x16 Slot

[btarunr]

ASRock introduced the Blazing Quad M.2 riser card. Roughly the size of a tall, single-slot graphics card, this contraption converts a PCI-Express 5.0 x16 slot to four M.2 Gen 5 slots, each with PCI-Express 5.0 x4 wiring, with room for up to 110 mm drive length. The four slots are located underneath a cooling solution that consists of an aluminium heatsink that's ventilated by a pair of fans. The card draws power from a 6-pin PCIe power connector for a total of 150 W power-delivery capability. While there's no bridge chip on this card, making it essentially a riser that disaggregates an x16 slot to four x4 M.2 slots, a microcontroller handles the cooling. Each of the four M.2 slots has a link/activity LED at the rear I/O. The card measures 243 mm x 126 mm, and is exactly one slot thick. It should prove useful on Xeon W + W790 platforms that have up to 112 PCIe lanes from the processor, although the card supports just about any machine with a PCIe x16 slot with lane disaggregation. You get the PCIe standard that the x16 slot supports.



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[ir_cow]

Sell me this card! Don't need all these M.2 sockets on the motherboard anymore

 

[Flanker]

Also useful on computers where iGPU is enough and more storage is required

 

[roberto888]

Those fans could still be a bit larger for less noise imo.

 

[A Computer Guy]

Those fans could still be a bit larger for less noise imo.

Just gotta strap on a pair of Noctua's. (Hold on a moment that didn't sound quite right after I reread what I wrote.)

 

[AusWolf]

Interesting. I wonder how this thing works when you plug it into a secondary x16 slot with x4 wiring.

 

[ymdhis]

Interesting. I wonder how this thing works when you plug it into a secondary x16 slot with x4 wiring.

It has no bridge chip, so chances are that only the first slot will function.

 

[dont whant to set it"']

The power connector, could of been oriented towards the back of the card and not up , for compatibility with slimmer cases and possibly better cable management.

 

[gildedfist]

Gonna rock this on a SFF R9 7900

 

[Dirt Chip]

The need for 6pin power is absurd.
You have 75w from the pcie, why do you need more??
What NVMe pcie5 pull more than 18w??

 

[Assimilator]

Doesn't make much sense as a product when there are a mere handful of PCIe 5.0 SSDs available anyway...

The power connector, could of been oriented towards the back of the card and not up , for compatibility with slimmer cases and possibly better cable management.

could have

 

[Wirko]

It has no bridge chip, so chances are that only the first slot will function.

Given that Core and Ryzen CPUs generally support 8+8 bifurcation, and using a chipset that allows the same, wouldn't this card be able to run two SSDs?

 

[bonehead123]

The power connector, could of been oriented towards the back of the card and not up , for compatibility with slimmer cases and possibly better cable management.

^^THIS^^ there is no excuse for this lack of design acumen IMHO

And the absence of a bridge chip will make this an auto no-buy for most folks, including me...

 

[dont whant to set it"']

Use case specific.
There might be 2drive models on the vay for those with 2x8lane pcie 5.0 slot on mainstream desktop/*hedt/*ws as some of the latter two may also have at least one x8 slot.

Could be passively cooled as well by making use of chassis air flow front to back/ bottom to top while still withing the one slot format?I'd guess, different heatsinks tough with card backplate on a double duty :guard/heatsink.

 

[TumbleGeorge]

It doesn't say it's for free sale. My understanding is that it is a "bonus" accessory in the box on some premium model motherboards.

 

[Dirt Chip]

Interesting. I wonder how this thing works when you plug it into a secondary x16 slot with x4 wiring.

slow.

 

[trsttte]

This is very silly, where's the pcie switch to convert x8 5.0 to x16 4.0 ? Now that would be interesting, pcie4.0 nvme drives are common and cheap now, contrary to 5.0 which are only a handfull at best and all come with huge heatsinks that would need to be removed.

Doesn't make much sense as a product when there are a mere handful of PCIe 5.0 SSDs available anyway...

And they all come with very big heatsinks, not the type of stuff you buy to chuck into a board like this.

 

[AusWolf]

slow.

Either that, or your system will only detect one SSD. I wonder which.