Motherboard and System Reviews

Tom M
Tom M
Joined: 2 Feb 06
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I would like to revisit a

I would like to revisit a subset of a long-time question.   Which AMD Ryzen motherboards have the "Above 4G" toggle in their Bios?  And if they don't have the toggle do they run out of PCIe resources at about 4 GPUs or not?

The subset I am interested in is the AMD Ryzzen "X570" chipset since my latest X570 has cleanly run all of its short slots.  Something I have been having trouble with lower-level chipsets on.

x570 Brands with "Above 4G" include:

MSI x570 Pro, for instance.  This MB will boot 7 GPUs but apparently will only run 5 without crashing.

Gigabyte x570 bios, mentioned in a Google search.

 

 

Brands that do not have "Above 4G" in all their X570 motherboards include:

Asrock X570 Taichi, for instance.

Asus Crosshair VII (not x570, I think).  This MB will boot/run 6 GPUs.

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Internet researchers as well as anyone with first-hand info is invited to comment.

What about the EPYC motherboards?  Do they have "Above 4G" in their bios?

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Tom M

 

A Proud member of the O.F.A.  (Old Farts Association).  Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.® (Garrison Keillor)  I want some more patience. RIGHT NOW!

Keith Myers
Keith Myers
Joined: 11 Feb 11
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Yes they all do.  All server

Yes they all do.  All server motherboards have that feature.  Necessary because they need to host lots of PCIE devices that have their own memory requirements.

 

Ian&Steve C.
Ian&Steve C.
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My AsRock X570 board has

My AsRock X570 board has Above 4G Decoding, and yours likely does too. 
 

check under Advanced->PCI Configuration (or anything that says PCI/PCIe) 

 

if it’s truly not there, update your BIOS. 

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Tom M
Tom M
Joined: 2 Feb 06
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Credit: 9579953174
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Ian&Steve C. wrote: My

Ian&Steve C. wrote:

My AsRock X570 board has Above 4G Decoding, and yours likely does too. 
 

check under Advanced->PCI Configuration (or anything that says PCI/PCIe) 

 

if it’s truly not there, update your BIOS. 

Got it in one.  The bios was dated 7/3/2020.  When I looked there were at least a half dozen bios updates.

After I flashed the current update I did have to disable CSM in the boot menu before the Above 4G was accessible...

Tom M

A Proud member of the O.F.A.  (Old Farts Association).  Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.® (Garrison Keillor)  I want some more patience. RIGHT NOW!

MarkJ
MarkJ
Joined: 28 Feb 08
Posts: 437
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2 x ASUS X570-P/CSM

2 x ASUS X570-P/CSM motherboard with Ryzen 5900X CPU and GT 710 (used to display desktop)

4 x ASUS X570-P/CSM with Ryzen 3600 CPU and GTX 1660 Ti

1 x ASUS X570-P/CSM with Ryzen 3600 CPU and GT 710 (used for desktop)

1 x ASUS B550M-II with Ryzen 3300X CPU and GT 710 (used for desktop)

 

My only gripe with them is the B550M offers a secure erase feature for the M.2 NVMe SSD in the BIOS but the X570-P's don't have it.

I would upgrade the GTX 1660 Ti's but, well you know what its like trying to get a GPU these days.

Tom M
Tom M
Joined: 2 Feb 06
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MarkJ wrote: I would upgrade

MarkJ wrote:

I would upgrade the GTX 1660 Ti's but, well you know what its like trying to get a GPU these days.

Yup, sigh.

Are all your systems running 100% E@H or are they spilt across various other BOINC projects?

Tom M

A Proud member of the O.F.A.  (Old Farts Association).  Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.® (Garrison Keillor)  I want some more patience. RIGHT NOW!

Ian&Steve C.
Ian&Steve C.
Joined: 19 Jan 20
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Tom M wrote: After I flashed

Tom M wrote:

After I flashed the current update I did have to disable CSM in the boot menu before the Above 4G was accessible...

Tom M

OK, but do you need CSM enabled for anything? seems like a non-issue otherwise.

what about your other boards? did you find the Above 4G Decoding setting either via looking in the correct sub folders, or updating the BIOSes?

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MarkJ
MarkJ
Joined: 28 Feb 08
Posts: 437
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Tom M wrote: MarkJ wrote: I

Tom M wrote:

MarkJ wrote:

I would upgrade the GTX 1660 Ti's but, well you know what its like trying to get a GPU these days.

Yup, sigh.

Are all your systems running 100% E@H or are they spilt across various other BOINC projects?

Tom M

I have multiple projects on all of them. The B550M machine is a running a proxy server and Pi-Hole and doesn't do number crunching.

Its also 27 degrees C here (Sydney, Australia) today. We're in Autumn and the average temp is supposed to be 20 degrees for this time of year. I tend to run the Ryzen 5900X's on Rosetta overnight and get the GPU's going first thing in the morning to keep temps down.

 

Tom M
Tom M
Joined: 2 Feb 06
Posts: 6453
Credit: 9579953174
RAC: 7400685

New Asrock B450

New Asrock B450 Pro4

Pros:

  • Costs around $89 new
  • Runs upto 3rd gen Ryzen cpus (upto 3950x)
  • Has 2 long slots to support 2 GPUs on the MB.
  • 6 PCIe slots on MB, all working when tested individually.
  • 4 Ram slots available
  • Reviewed as a good middle-grade Content Creation MotherBoard.

Cons:

  • No gen4 PCIe (but you usually don't need that kind of speed for BOINC).
  • I wish I had found it earlier.  Might have skipped my X70-A Pro experience entirely.

Comments:  I went shopping for an MB that I could use in place of a couple of MSI X570-A Pro MBs that also have two long slots.  My goal was to buy a new, up-to-date non-x570/x660/x510/x470/x450 motherboard.

This Motherboard could be used as the basis for a "Daily Driver"/BOINC cruncher machine.  If all my dreams were to collapse today but I could rescue two Rx 5700's this MB would allow me to deploy a robust E@H cruncher using nothing but an Amd 2700x and those two gpus.

And it would have enough horsepower to handle all my daily chores upto and including light to medium software development work.

Current plans are to re-pack it in its original packaging and put it into storage until I need it.

Tom M

A Proud member of the O.F.A.  (Old Farts Association).  Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.® (Garrison Keillor)  I want some more patience. RIGHT NOW!

Tom M
Tom M
Joined: 2 Feb 06
Posts: 6453
Credit: 9579953174
RAC: 7400685

Tom M wrote: Just got in an

Tom M wrote:

Just got in an Asrock X570 Tahci yesterday afternoon.  I had a busy day and haven't gotten it out for preliminary testing till now.

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It has demonstrated the ability to run 3 GPUs under Windows 10.  

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After running it for a while the next step will be to install it in the Open Airframe and migrate everything but the MB from the Monolith case to that open-air MB.

I have installed this MB on an Open Air ATX computer frame.  And have it running 2 Rx 580's and a gtx 1060 3GB (mining version w/video ports).

This system has been renamed "Gravity's Gazebo". Its primary focus is to run as many gravity wave CPU tasks as it can without slowing down the processing...  That is currently 6.  I may take it back up to 8.  But so far, the processing speeds slow down to 12 hours per task if I try above the 6-8 range.

I experienced some more trouble with these troublesome Rx 580s but have reached the point where they are running 2 task threads and not giving me any trouble (currently). These cards have given me stability issues across multiple MB's so I am confident it was not this MB's fault.

Tom M

 

A Proud member of the O.F.A.  (Old Farts Association).  Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.® (Garrison Keillor)  I want some more patience. RIGHT NOW!

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