Say No to the Paywall of PCI-E Bifurcation
The article examines PCI-E bifurcation limitations on Intel consumer motherboards, contrasting them with AMD's support. It details a method to enable bifurcation through CPU pin modifications and questions manufacturer restrictions.
Read original article
The article discusses the limitations of PCI-E bifurcation on consumer-level Intel motherboards compared to server-level options. PCI-E bifurcation allows the division of x16 PCI-E channels into smaller configurations, which is beneficial for connecting multiple devices that require lower speeds. While AMD motherboards often support this feature in their BIOS, Intel's consumer motherboards typically do not, especially in lower-end models. The author provides a method to bypass these limitations by accessing the Intel ark document to check supported bifurcation modes and modifying the CPU's configuration pins to enable bifurcation manually. This involves grounding specific pins on the motherboard to set desired bifurcation values. The article concludes by highlighting the potential for improved device connectivity through these modifications, questioning why motherboard manufacturers disable such features, and mentioning the complexity of further modifications to the PCI-E lanes of the Platform Controller Hub (PCH).
- PCI-E bifurcation allows for better utilization of PCI-E slots by dividing channels into smaller configurations.
- Intel consumer motherboards often lack support for PCI-E bifurcation in their BIOS, unlike AMD counterparts.
- The author outlines a method to enable bifurcation by modifying CPU configuration pins.
- The article raises questions about why motherboard manufacturers disable bifurcation features.
- Further modifications to the PCH's PCI-E lanes are noted as more complex.
Related
Leaked Arrow Lake diagram show more PCIe lanes, no DDR4, 2 M.2 SSD ports to CPU
The leaked Intel Arrow Lake chipset details upgrades like PCIe lanes increase, DDR5 support, dual M.2 SSD ports, Thunderbolt 4 integration, Arc Xe-LPG graphics, USB 3.2 Gen connections, and networking options. Insights into upcoming advancements.
Learning about PCI-e: Driver and DMA
The blog post details PCI-e device driver implementation, focusing on DMA for efficient data transfer, using MSIs for notifications, and integrating with QEMU to demonstrate framebuffer functionality.
Understanding Intel
Intel designs and manufactures semiconductor chips, focusing on personal computers and data centers. Despite competitive advantages, recent financial struggles and layoffs necessitate a strategic reassessment amid rising industry competition.
Intel: Our balance sheet is a smoking ruin, but we think our new chips work
Intel's new 18A manufacturing process shows promise with successful processor booting, but limited performance details raise investor concerns amid ongoing financial and legal challenges, while competitors advance their technologies.
Copper's reach is shrinking so Broadcom is strapping optics directly to GPUs
Broadcom is enhancing AI cluster performance by integrating optical interconnects with GPUs, using co-packaged optics to increase bandwidth to 1.6 TB/sec and reduce power consumption, amid competition from Intel and AMD.
4 commentsNowadays if you want to buy HEDT you either get a very fast version of the consumer part which is still extremely lane limited (limiting the usefulness of features like bifurcation), still has 2 memory channels, has the same memory capacity limits as that 10 year old X99 platform, and may or may not have usable ECC support (depending on the particular board and/or platform chipset options for that year) OR you can spend way more to get a CPU which is worse performing unless you need 32+ cores (and the even higher cost associated with that) but at least the platform has all that original HEDT capability.
The 1st generation of Threadripper was a bit like that too, albeit AMDs CPUs weren't the top performers of the day when that came out and they've since gone up accordingly.
So basically, it’s an argument to make all computers more expensive, in order to subsidize hobbyists.
For a NAS I don't need 4 in a pool, just 2 per slot works fine with HDD backups.
Related
Leaked Arrow Lake diagram show more PCIe lanes, no DDR4, 2 M.2 SSD ports to CPU
The leaked Intel Arrow Lake chipset details upgrades like PCIe lanes increase, DDR5 support, dual M.2 SSD ports, Thunderbolt 4 integration, Arc Xe-LPG graphics, USB 3.2 Gen connections, and networking options. Insights into upcoming advancements.
Learning about PCI-e: Driver and DMA
The blog post details PCI-e device driver implementation, focusing on DMA for efficient data transfer, using MSIs for notifications, and integrating with QEMU to demonstrate framebuffer functionality.
Understanding Intel
Intel designs and manufactures semiconductor chips, focusing on personal computers and data centers. Despite competitive advantages, recent financial struggles and layoffs necessitate a strategic reassessment amid rising industry competition.
Intel: Our balance sheet is a smoking ruin, but we think our new chips work
Intel's new 18A manufacturing process shows promise with successful processor booting, but limited performance details raise investor concerns amid ongoing financial and legal challenges, while competitors advance their technologies.
Copper's reach is shrinking so Broadcom is strapping optics directly to GPUs
Broadcom is enhancing AI cluster performance by integrating optical interconnects with GPUs, using co-packaged optics to increase bandwidth to 1.6 TB/sec and reduce power consumption, amid competition from Intel and AMD.