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Hassam Nasir is a die-hard hardware enthusiast with years of experience as a tech editor and writer, focusing on detailed CPU comparisons and general hardware news. When he\u2019s not working, you\u2019ll find him bending tubes for his ever-evolving custom water-loop gaming rig or benchmarking the latest CPUs and GPUs just for fun. ","collapsible":{"enabled":true,"maxHeight":250,"readMoreText":"Read more","readLessText":"Read less"}}), "https://slice.vanilla.futurecdn.net/13-4-20/js/authorBio.js"); } else { console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); } Hassam Nasir Social Links Navigation Contributing Writer Hassam Nasir is a die-hard hardware enthusiast with years of experience as a tech editor and writer, focusing on detailed CPU comparisons and general hardware news. When he’s not working, you’ll find him bending tubes for his ever-evolving custom water-loop gaming rig or benchmarking the latest CPUs and GPUs just for fun.
usertests Not a useless product, but from what I can tell, low profile GPUs are rarer and more expensive in the first place. Reply
Mathrawkee 'pciemaxxing'? I like to 'MAX OUT' with a FULL HEIGHT GPU. JUST SAYIN. "Hey let's Maxx out my system with a laptop gpu" 😵💫 Reply
Mathrawkee usertests said: Not a useless product, but from what I can tell, low profile GPUs are rarer and more expensive in the first place. "rarity"? Not sure how this applies. They're rare b/c the usage case is small. Half height cards are for like MAtx systems and like prebuilts w/daughter boards. AKA, not high horsepower systems. 'maxx' it out all you want. Still sucks. Reply
Notton I'm not saying anyone should do it, but what's the potential for daisy-chaining a PCIe riser cable off of the adapter/splitter card and plugging in a full height GPU? Reply
usertests Mathrawkee said: "rarity"? Not sure how this applies. They're rare b/c the usage case is small. Half height cards are for like MAtx systems and like prebuilts w/daughter boards. AKA, not high horsepower systems. 'maxx' it out all you want. Still sucks. They are less common and tend to be more expensive because of that. They should be used for their intended purpose, not to add two more SSDs unless you're one of the few people who really need that. Reply
flytrap23 Attaching my data stick to one of the hottest components in the system seems like it might be a bad idea. Reply
abufrejoval I use this adapter for Miniforum BD790i boards, which have a single x16 PCIe v5 slot and two v5 M.2 sockets, but essentially no South Bridge. While I operate some of them as a normal PC with a dGPU, others are mini-servers and there 'sacrificing' 16 lanes of PCIe v5 to a single (non dGPU) purpose seems an awful waste. So I use the adapter to subdivide the lanes, do what a mainboard would do in a bigger form factor. Most NICs, FC, HBA and RAID adapters come with low-profile options, so they easily fit into the top slot: few of them use more than 8 lanes anyway. Getting a 10Gbit NIC with a M.2 connector is also pretty easy and even cheap, which is a good complement for such a machine. In the server variants I use an LSI hardware RAID6 adapter to drive my bulk storage HDDs and then have three slots of M.2 for hot/cache storage SSDs (two on the mainboard, one on the break-out adapter), while the last M.2 on the break-out is used for the 10Gbit NIC. You can also use a ribbon cable from the top slot to drive a full sized GPU at x8, but typically that means lowering to PCI v4, perhaps even v3 speeds, as v5 across such passive cables is asking for physics to bend to your liking. I tested that with an Intel B580, which is x8 and PCIe v4 anyway, so no extra fiddling required. Don't expect v5 on those M.2 slots either… The minor annoyance is that slot brackets for low-profile tend to have same orientation as the original PCI cards, so side-by-side mounting can result in a bit of overlap. These are very similar to bifurcation cards sold for compact servers for ages, nothing esoteric or technically challenging whatsoever, I'd say they are quite simply a standard piece of kit for me these days. A bit like SO-DIMM to DIMM adapters, when just getting matching new sticks is a bit of a bother. Reply
abufrejoval Notton said: I'm not saying anyone should do it, but what's the potential for daisy-chaining a PCIe riser cable off of the adapter/splitter card and plugging in a full height GPU? Done it (with an Intel B580), it works within the physical limits. No v5, certainly, v4 worked for me v3 may be safer, you're in the analog domain for most of those risks. If your GPU is v5 capable, it might fail during negotiations, since the cable cannot signal v4 limits. So you need to prep for lower speeds in the BIOS and go from there. And of course not every ribbon cable even advertises v4 support. Reply
NinjaChemist Notton said: I'm not saying anyone should do it, but what's the potential for daisy-chaining a PCIe riser cable off of the adapter/splitter card and plugging in a full height GPU? That's what I was thinking too. There aren't too many graphics cards that'll saturate an 8x PCIe v5 connection and vertical mounting is popular. Might as well make full use of your I/O. Reply
BillyBuerger I could see this helpful with a mITX board where the GPU is already being connected with a riser cable. The riser cable could also have a couple of M.2 slots on it in addition to extending the PCIe to the GPU whatever size that is. As long as it doesn't need the full 16x bandwidth. My current setup is a mITX board with only one M.2 slot and an RX 6500XT GPU which only uses 4x of the 16x slot. So I could in theory split up for 3x more M.2 4x slots. Although just one more would be nice. Reply
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/ssds/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/ssds/usd27-platypus-pcie-adapter-converts-half-height-gpus-into-full-height-while-adding-two-m-2-slots-for-ssds-enthusiast-demos-low-profile-rtx-4060-with-two-ssds-thanks-to-pcie-bifurcation#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
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Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.