Zak is a freelance contributor to Tom's Hardware with decades of PC benchmarking experience who has also written for HotHardware and The Tech Report. A modern-day Renaissance man, he may not be an expert on anything, but he knows just a little about nearly everything. ","collapsible":{"enabled":true,"maxHeight":250,"readMoreText":"Read more","readLessText":"Read less"}}), "https://slice.vanilla.futurecdn.net/13-4-24/js/authorBio.js"); } else { console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); } Zak Killian Contributor Zak is a freelance contributor to Tom's Hardware with decades of PC benchmarking experience who has also written for HotHardware and The Tech Report. A modern-day Renaissance man, he may not be an expert on anything, but he knows just a little about nearly everything.
drea.drechsler So… silly questions this raises… Does it work only in the GPU slot for a direct connection to the CPU? Does this have to be plugged into an AM5 motherboard or work only with a 7000 or 9000 series CPU? Would it work in AM4 with a 1st. 2nd, 3rd or 4th gen CPU? Would the B650 chipset driver install properly if it sees it's on an AM4 platform? Crazier still: would it work in an Intel motherboard? And last is about cost effectiveness: there are already add-in boards that add M.2 sockets for NVME and for additional USB ports of all flavors. At $199 I wonder if it's cheap enough… or is there an inherent advantage in using an AMD chipset to do it with? Reply
Li Ken-un An even crazier question: dangling another of these off the last PCIe 4.0 \00d7 4 link in the chain of chipsets like CPU ⇄ PROM21 ⇄ PROM21 ⇄ PROM21? 😀 Reply
ezst036 So many motherboards come with 2,3,4 or more M.2 connectors on them. Are there really that many people that are starving for M.2 drives that they need like 9 of them? Reply
LabRat 891 Does it require UEFI support or, since PROM21 boards are CSM-compatible, can this enumerate and handshake on a Legacy BIOS board? Using this kind of card on an AM3+ board or earlier, is the kind of anachronism I would adore. Need. Reply
USAFRet LabRat 891 said: Need. On what motherboard, specifically? And with what other parts? Forcefeeding an uberfast drive into a mediocre board is a waste of time, effort, and money. Reply
bit_user I get that it's sort of a niche product, but my B650 motherboard didn't cost this much. It probably cost a bit more than half, but I don't exactly know because it was part of a bundle deal. Reply
bit_user drea.drechsler said: Does it work only in the GPU slot for a direct connection to the CPU? I'd guess that you can put it in any slot, since high-end AMD motherboards have two of these chips and they're daisy-chained. In fact, AMD has previously demonstrated how you can daisy-chain multiple of them. drea.drechsler said: Does this have to be plugged into an AM5 motherboard or work only with a 7000 or 9000 series CPU? I think it probably works with any CPU, since the interface is generic PCIe 4.0 x4. drea.drechsler said: Would it work in AM4 with a 1st. 2nd, 3rd or 4th gen CPU? Would the B650 chipset driver install properly if it sees it's on an AM4 platform? Crazier still: would it work in an Intel motherboard? If it works with any of them, it would probably work with all of them. All of the above questions should be answered on the manufacturer's web page (or the product listing page, wherever you can buy them). drea.drechsler said: And last is about cost effectiveness: there are already add-in boards that add M.2 sockets for NVME and for additional USB ports of all flavors. At $199 I wonder if it's cheap enough… or is there an inherent advantage in using an AMD chipset to do it with? What it's got is a proper PCIe switch. So, it doesn't depend on the ability to bifurcate a slot, like some of those carrier card solutions do. Reply
bit_user ezst036 said: So many motherboards come with 2,3,4 or more M.2 connectors on them. Are there really that many people that are starving for M.2 drives that they need like 9 of them? I'd guess people putting a lot of them in a software RAID, merely for capacity & redundancy reasons? Reply
bit_user LabRat 891 said: Does it require UEFI support or, since PROM21 boards are CSM-compatible, can this enumerate and handshake on a Legacy BIOS board? Doesn't that sort of thing only matter at boot time? If you're not booting off anything plugged into this card, then I think you don't even need to worry about CSM support. Reply
palladin9479 ezst036 said: So many motherboards come with 2,3,4 or more M.2 connectors on them. Are there really that many people that are starving for M.2 drives that they need like 9 of them? Higher tier boards no, but I can imagine someone with a mid tier board who suddenly needs more things. Reply
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