Colorful Intros a Non-standard Motherboard with Eight PCIe x16 Slots

[silentbogo]

Looks stupid for a design, i guess colorful is doing what biostar is, they can't compete so they march to their own drum.

It does not look as stupid, if you consider that this is not an original idea. Few months ago there was a news article about GTX1060 mining edition, and it featured a picture of a complete rig inside a rackmount case with the exact same board.
It's not that bad or stupid, it's simply not mainstream. Same thing can be used for "DGX-1 on the budget" or "Project 47 for really broke", which will make at least a few researchers and scientists happy.

 

[CheapMeat]

I'm not a miner but I think this board is REALLY interesting. I love the simplicity in a way like others mentioned. I was all in for buying it. But it's not actually RACK mountable sadly. It's too long. It is 19.0945" wide and most rack chassis are 17.5" +/- interior space and 19" wide total. If it had 7 slots it would have fit fine in the current layout. I tried to email Colorful now in the hopes they can make a second version. Hell, I don't even mind the x1 PCIe slots. If they make the spacing more standard, I would LOVE a board like this with even more slots! I'm dreaming of twelve x1 (or x4) slots lined up in standard spacing. It could be so useful in a rack for lots of I/O cards to do whatever you want with; I seriously ran through Newegg looking at tons of x1 PCIe addon & network cards for fun. I'm totally fine with the other specs included. But of course ThreadRipper/EPYC or Intel X299 chip with more PCIe lanes and other improvements (so at least x4 slots instead of x1) would be great too.

I wish other people could think outside the box on this here, even as a form factor. I hope Colorful sells enough of these and they read this. I'm serious about buying one or two if they make it a tad shorter to fit in a standard 19" rack.

 

[LukeCuda]

the slots are x1 pcie bandwidth. so what is the benefit over risers? much more interesting if it were real x16 like other more expensive motherboards.

 

[CheapMeat]

It wouldn't be relatively cheap then, at least in a way to want miners to actually buy it, not that the price is known. You'd have to incorporate a better CPU and better PCH for more PCIe lanes or a new PLX chip (over $100 on bill of materials). At that point you end up getting into something beyond what it was intended to do, beyond what people in general would pay for a niche and beyond what even you would care to pay for.

 

[nemesis.ie]

Indeed, I don't know how much PLX charges for theirs (I didn't look, you hinted at $100 plus)) but some of the Broadcom ones are pretty pricey in small quantities:

https://www.broadcom.com/products/pcie-switches-bridges/pcie-switches/

The 24 lane is more than 4x the cost of the 12 below.

https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/broadcom-limited/PEX8714-AB80BI-G/516-3569-ND/6139489

https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/broadcom-limited/PEX8796-AB80BI-G/516-3573-ND/6110849

Maybe those are "carrier class" or something.

I wonder who else might make them at a lower price.

 

[ashkzari]

Do you know what case model is suitable for this motherboard and how can buy it?

 

[CheapMeat]

Do you know what case model is suitable for this motherboard and how can buy it?

Sadly I don't think there's any case that can fit it. It's probably meant to just sit on some DIY setup, like a tablet or wood make-shift rack, or something similar that Altcoin miners tend to do.