How many PCIe Slots do you use?

[XMD7007]

I'm just curious about how many PCIe slots you are using with your main gaming PC.

In my case it's only two, the GPU and a sound card on an ATX board, and this is just because I didn't want to get an external DAC/HPA for this PC.

I suppose that most people do not use a lot of them. You might think it would be different if you look at the number of available mainboards, e.g. for the socket AM4 with X570 chipset. Most of them are ATX mainboards with 4 to 6 PCIe slots. Yes, I know the extra space is not only used for more PCIe slots, but also for other things like M.2 or other circuits.

Mainboard availability for Socket AM4 - X570
- Mini-ITX/DTX - (5)
- µATX - (1)
- ATX/E-ATX - (34)

I think µATX is a pretty good form factor for gaming PCs, yet here we have only one single mainboard available.

Please also specify what other cards you are using, if you use more than one PCIe slot.

[Usernameforforums]

1 for my graphics card and 1 for my elgato hd60 to play my switch.

[Wries]

I use two. One for the graphics card and one for a blackmagic video card so my reference monitor gets a clean feed when I'm color grading content.

I think a crushing majority ever only use 1 nowadays. I remember our run of the mill family computer from '98 used like 5 because nothing was really built into the mobo those days

µATX could have become more popular, but the ATX motherboard size turns out to provide good space for easy motherboard designs, making for cheaper production costs, I reckon. (There are cheap µATX of course but they usually sacrifice useful stuff like double DIMM-slots per channel.) miniITX is becoming more and more popular but usually induces a price premium for really good boards that still manage to pack in all the good stuff.

[Shakadam]

µATX could have become more popular, but the ATX motherboard size turns out to provide good space for easy motherboard designs, making for cheaper production costs, I reckon. (There are cheap µATX of course but they usually sacrifice useful stuff like double DIMM-slots per channel.) miniITX is becoming more and more popular but usually induces a price premium for really good boards that still manage to pack in all the good stuff.

Nah, µATX/mATX has the same features as ATX, just minus 1 full length pci-e slot and 1-2 pci-e x1 slots. Which still leaves mATX with 2 full length pci-e slots and 1-2 pci-e x1 slots, more than enough for 99% of everyone building a computer. mATX is the same width as ATX and because the ATX standard defines where the pci-e slots must be, the "upper part" of an mATX board is exactly the same as ATX unless the manufacturer has deliberately made changes.

mATX simply suffers from a lack of promotion by mobo manufacturers, having long been a budget segment, and general lack of understanding by PC builders. I often read comments about how the size of an mATX mobo can cause cooling problems which is just.... nope. Everything that generates heat (CPU, VRM, GPU) is in exactly the same place as a similarly designed ATX mobo.

That said, there are a few really good B550 mATX boards, MSI B550M Mortar and Asrock B550M Steel Legend primarily.

[Wries]

Nah, µATX/mATX has the same features as ATX, just minus 1 full length pci-e slot and 1-2 pci-e x1 slots. Which still leaves mATX with 2 full length pci-e slots and 1-2 pci-e x1 slots, more than enough for 99% of everyone building a computer. mATX is the same width as ATX and because the ATX standard defines where the pci-e slots must be, the "upper part" of an mATX board is exactly the same as ATX unless the manufacturer has deliberately made changes.

mATX simply suffers from a lack of promotion by mobo manufacturers, having long been a budget segment, and general lack of understanding by PC builders. I often read comments about how the size of an mATX mobo can cause cooling problems which is just.... nope. Everything that generates heat (CPU, VRM, GPU) is in exactly the same place as a similarly designed ATX mobo.

That said, there are a few really good B550 mATX boards, MSI B550M Mortar and Asrock B550M Steel Legend primarily.

Sorry but I feel I adressed your arguments pre-emptively in my post but still got this reply? Why they don’t promote it is so very likely to be because they don’t gain much from doing it.

Edit: sorry. Guess I didn’t mention much of the premium mATX segment and went direct to that there were budget ones “also”. Yeah they exist, owned two Maximus Gene mATX models myself. I still don’t think the manufacturers “like” doing premium mATX as they are simply posed with more, albeit small, challenges that require costlier components.

[Kagthul]

Sorry but I feel I adressed your arguments pre-emptively in my post but still got this reply? Why they don’t promote it is so very likely to be because they don’t gain much from doing it.

Edit: sorry. Guess I didn’t mention much of the premium mATX segment and went direct to that there were budget ones “also”. Yeah they exist, owned two Maximus Gene mATX models myself. I still don’t think the manufacturers “like” doing premium mATX as they are simply posed with more, albeit small, challenges that require costlier components.

Not at all. mATX is literally just full ATX with less PCIe traces. Thats it. (its exactly the same width, just shorter).

Its almost literally just cutting the bottom slots off the board. In fact, if you compare the ATX and mATX versions of the "same board" (grab just the ASRock B550 Pro 4 and B550M Pro 4. Its exactly the same board, with the bottom slots chopped off and the ports on the bottom edge moved up (or, more precisely, they are still at the bottom edge, and are now just closer) - that actually SAVES money as it eliminates the traces for the removed PCIe slots entirely, and shortens the traces for the bottom row of connectors.

The reason their aren't a ton of "High end" mATX boards is quite simple..... no one needs them. B550 (and B450 before it) are completely sufficient even for a high-end build on AMD. The X-series boards have been a shitty proposition from their inception. Almost all users, even enthusiasts, dont need any of the features on X570. At best you're getting more robust power delivery for..... what? Massive overclocking? You literally cant do that on Ryzen. And in almost all cases it actually leads to WORSE gaming performance because XFR does a better job managing the 1-3 cores that can really haul ass and if you try an all-core OC, the ones that DONT haul-ass choke the ones that do down to the max they can handle.

X470 and X570 in particular are really bad value propositions. You almost certainly gain almost nothing practical performance wise (again, we're talking "Average user" and even "gaming enthusiast" - not "power user who games AND does low-end Workstation work on his rig" - thats an ENTIRELY different market) for the extra cost.

Thats why they simply aren't made. There's no one to sell them to.

Notice that this is NOT this way on the Intel side. There are a raft of Z490 boards in mATX - because there's an actual practical difference between Z490 and H470 and B460 (though, if anything H470 is the odd man out here as B460 has almost an entirely identical feature set and is a lot cheaper).

[Drusin]

2 Video Cards and a raid controller, but my next PC will be 2 video cards and a quad M.2 card

[Miseration]

Not at all. mATX is literally just full ATX with less PCIe traces. Thats it. (its exactly the same width, just shorter).

Its almost literally just cutting the bottom slots off the board. In fact, if you compare the ATX and mATX versions of the "same board" (grab just the ASRock B550 Pro 4 and B550M Pro 4. Its exactly the same board, with the bottom slots chopped off and the ports on the bottom edge moved up (or, more precisely, they are still at the bottom edge, and are now just closer) - that actually SAVES money as it eliminates the traces for the removed PCIe slots entirely, and shortens the traces for the bottom row of connectors.

The reason their aren't a ton of "High end" mATX boards is quite simple..... no one needs them. B550 (and B450 before it) are completely sufficient even for a high-end build on AMD. The X-series boards have been a shitty proposition from their inception. Almost all users, even enthusiasts, dont need any of the features on X570. At best you're getting more robust power delivery for..... what? Massive overclocking? You literally cant do that on Ryzen. And in almost all cases it actually leads to WORSE gaming performance because XFR does a better job managing the 1-3 cores that can really haul ass and if you try an all-core OC, the ones that DONT haul-ass choke the ones that do down to the max they can handle.

X470 and X570 in particular are really bad value propositions. You almost certainly gain almost nothing practical performance wise (again, we're talking "Average user" and even "gaming enthusiast" - not "power user who games AND does low-end Workstation work on his rig" - thats an ENTIRELY different market) for the extra cost.

Thats why they simply aren't made. There's no one to sell them to.

Notice that this is NOT this way on the Intel side. There are a raft of Z490 boards in mATX - because there's an actual practical difference between Z490 and H470 and B460 (though, if anything H470 is the odd man out here as B460 has almost an entirely identical feature set and is a lot cheaper).

I'd have to say. Thank you! I do love my b450 Steel Legend. But i sure could have gotten a mATX board since i dont cross fire or anything..
*edit I just use 1 PCIE slot. I know my M.2 runs on pcie as well.. maybe 2? lol just my Rx580 though

[Triggered Fridgekin]

If you go mATX you should just go ITX. If the main drive is downsizing to plop on your desk and you only have one PCIE device aside from your NVME drives then just do yourself a favor and join the master form factor especially now that the NR200 is out which takes the Ncase M1 idea and blows it up to an 18 liter case which has incredible cooling and GPU support for less than $100.

Do it!

[Alexplode]

Not at all. mATX is literally just full ATX with less PCIe traces. Thats it. (its exactly the same width, just shorter).

Its almost literally just cutting the bottom slots off the board. In fact, if you compare the ATX and mATX versions of the "same board" (grab just the ASRock B550 Pro 4 and B550M Pro 4. Its exactly the same board, with the bottom slots chopped off and the ports on the bottom edge moved up (or, more precisely, they are still at the bottom edge, and are now just closer) - that actually SAVES money as it eliminates the traces for the removed PCIe slots entirely, and shortens the traces for the bottom row of connectors.

The reason their aren't a ton of "High end" mATX boards is quite simple..... no one needs them. B550 (and B450 before it) are completely sufficient even for a high-end build on AMD. The X-series boards have been a shitty proposition from their inception. Almost all users, even enthusiasts, dont need any of the features on X570. At best you're getting more robust power delivery for..... what? Massive overclocking? You literally cant do that on Ryzen. And in almost all cases it actually leads to WORSE gaming performance because XFR does a better job managing the 1-3 cores that can really haul ass and if you try an all-core OC, the ones that DONT haul-ass choke the ones that do down to the max they can handle.

X470 and X570 in particular are really bad value propositions. You almost certainly gain almost nothing practical performance wise (again, we're talking "Average user" and even "gaming enthusiast" - not "power user who games AND does low-end Workstation work on his rig" - thats an ENTIRELY different market) for the extra cost.

Thats why they simply aren't made. There's no one to sell them to.

Notice that this is NOT this way on the Intel side. There are a raft of Z490 boards in mATX - because there's an actual practical difference between Z490 and H470 and B460 (though, if anything H470 is the odd man out here as B460 has almost an entirely identical feature set and is a lot cheaper).

How do I upvote your comment?

Buy yeah I been going full mATX for my gaming rig since my first build.

Also I use 1 for my gpu . Don't think I need anything else for video editing, work and gaming.

[Twdft]

I use 2, one for the graphics card obviously and another for a card with four usb 3.0 ports which get extra power from the psu. I have a couple external harddrives.

[MrMatticus]

2 Video Cards and a raid controller, but my next PC will be 2 video cards and a quad M.2 card

Any reason for the duo cards? I know it isn't SLi for gaming because SLi for gaming is dead. Maybe work?

[Nutri]

I have 4 slots all occupied by two video cards (R9 290's).

[Naiattavain]

im using a expansion card for each slot. all are occupied.

[Phyrexia-KulTiras]

1 for gpu and 1 for nvme.

[FlawlessSoul]

I'm still on X79 and use 3 - GPU (via riser for vertical mount), SB X-Fi soundcard (I use optical out to Z906 and multichannel out to a receiver), and a USB3 card for specific compatibility with my Lenovo Explorer HMD, and X-52 HOTAS to avoid any issues). I've had both since X58, but kept them since my X79 has the space, and they do what I need.

I'd consider going ITX for a future build, but it would probably be a secondary gaming machine (I'd want a compact PC I could move around easily but portability is not a priority for my main machine).

[Drusin]

Any reason for the duo cards? I know it isn't SLi for gaming because SLi for gaming is dead. Maybe work?

6 monitor setup

[MrMatticus]

6 monitor setup

That's fair at least.

[Twoddle]

Where's the option for none? Integrated graphics all the way.

[Advent]

One? I can't think of any reason I'd want to use more, or what I would even use them for.