But... but... where can you use this? 3000 series that have PCIe 4.0 don't have an iGPU, meaning that 16x connection from the CPU will get eaten by the GPU. Oh wait... Threadawesomerippers are coming soon. https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/gigabyte-aorus-threadripper-3000-motherboard-reveals-active-cooling-and-massive-vrm.429043/ This will break some I/O speed records for sure!

PCIe to me only says "another small fan"... either chipset or now, PCIe SSDs...

DeskStar:

Just need the ways of liquid cooling.....soon enough. Waiting happily for my giga x570 works extreme to have one ready.....

Well yes, but another two couplings and another block for a hard drive? Block, 2 couplings in addition, another tube to prepare? Feels like we're going backwards... lowering TDP of CPUs and getting more energy efficient GPUs with semi passive mode just to introduce two 40 or 50mm fans again in your system... that's stupid.

DeskStar:

Meant for my CPU and VRM's my board is already passively cooled. Not about to have a SB fan die on me again .... I would slap on a couple/one big block to cool all of my M.2's for this guy as restriction isn't a thing in my system. Taking out four cards for one, so a lot more flow just opened up.

Ah sorry, I misunderstood then. Well one's not the issue for restrictions, but... have a CPU and another mainboard block (or, one big mono), then one or two GPUs, and one or two PCIe SSDs... that definitely double of what a custom loop could be reduced too if you just skip PCIe 4.0 or not go for full custom water loop. I still have the subjective impression that they should figure out a way to get that technology (PCIe 4) to a passive state... it's not "2019" to introduce actively cooled components with mini fans.

the asus card is only functional on asus motherboards, theres a vendor restriction in the cards firmware.

fantaskarsef:

PCIe to me only says "another small fan"... either chipset or now, PCIe SSDs...

just because it has a fan doesnt mean it always spins. i have an msi x570-a pro that has a chipset fan and it almost NEVER spins (only once during POST and then maybe a few seconds every minute at the lowest speed possible if its warm in my room)

Personally, I'm just interested in devices like this to bifurcate/multiplex x16 slots into four x4 slots. This is appealing for heavy number-crunching GPU workloads, where you can just keep dumping in more GPUs. For such tasks, x16 is tremendously overkill, but x1 is slow enough to make a noticeable performance impact. x4 (especially for PCIe 3.0+) is usually more than fast enough to load up program data instantaneously. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, cards like this are always weirdly expensive, even though a lot of motherboards have similar functions built-in. Thanks to crypto miners, the x1 multiplexers are pretty cheap, but, that's taking an x1 slot and splitting it into more x1 slots, which isn't ideal.

Alienwarez567:

Never got my Asus Hyper M-2 card working not sure why.

I have it working in my workstation. These cards require a motherboard that supports 4x4x4x4 mode in a 16x slot and a CPU that supplies enough lanes. If you have all of that sorted it is a matter of using the correct slot and setting that slot to 4x4x4x4 mode. Done correctly you can get some insane performance out of these cards: https://i.imgur.com/MCa857u.jpg

DeskStar:

WTF!?!

Here is the actual compatibility list: https://www.asus.com/us/support/FAQ/1037507/ I run mine on a X299 Apex which is not on that list so their own docs are kind of lacking.

Ssateneth:

just because it has a fan doesnt mean it always spins. i have an msi x570-a pro that has a chipset fan and it almost NEVER spins (only once during POST and then maybe a few seconds every minute at the lowest speed possible if its warm in my room)

If so, the question is if it's even necessary. And still.. we've come a long way to get rid of fans, now they are reintroduced... still feels like a small step backwards. But I can see it's not a big deal, but... 🙁

SweenJM:

Get yourself a Highpoint SSD7103......That is a sweet nvme raid card/cooler/multiplexer. I have the 7102, and i really like it. They are 450 bucks, but if you are running a system extreme enough to require multiple Nvme drives, you can probably afford one. Certainly works best on a system with an excess of PCIe lanes.

What is the impact on 4KQ1T1? I was actually surprised that VROC does not trash 4KQ1T1 (even in 4 way RAID) the way you would expect (see posted bench above).