AMD V1000 with PCIE x8

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Ethan Waldo

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Dec 9, 2018
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The AMD v1000 series seems like the perfect system for a small form factor 1xM.2 2800 NVME + 1xSATA SSD/HDD Ceph OSD system. Connecting to an Infiniband backbone is paramount so a PCIE 3.0 x8 slot for QDR is a must have. Up to this point the best I've seen is PCIE 2.0 x8 outside of EPYC which is more costly.

So far the GigaIPC AMD Ryzen V1605B Quad Display Dual GbE LAN Mini ITX Motherboard LAN Mini ITX Motherboard is the only product I've found that has a PCIE slot built-in and is about $50 cheaper on MITXPC than Amazon/Newegg. Does anyone know of any other barebones V1000, preferably v1605b or better, with at least PCIE x8 expansion for less than $400?
 
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dmarshman

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Nov 24, 2019
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I just came across this board - the GigaIPC mITX-1605A - via web searches, and came back and found your post.

Did you ever take the plunge and purchase one?


Still seems like it's only ITX option for Ryzen embedded. It's now $325 USD [plus ~$25 shipping] direct from mitxpc [and significantly more at Amazon and NewEgg.

I'm seriously considering it as an upgrade from my backup FreeNAS setup archive, which currently has the specs listed below..
FreeNAS 11.3
ASRock Fatal1ty B450 Mini-ITX
Athlon 240GE
10Gtek X520-10G-1S-X8 - 10Gbe NIC
16 GiB RAM - G.Skill Aegis 16GB 2 x 8GB DDR4-3000 PC4-24000 CL16 [F4-300C16D-16GISB]
Chenbro SR30169 Case w/ 250W PSU
2x WD Red (White Label) 14 TiB drives
That's so that I can have ECC RAM support, and upgrade from 2 cores/4 threads to 4 cores/8 threads [and power goes from ~35W to 22W].
From the specs, the performance should be similar to a Ryzen 5 Pro 2400GE.

In order to get ECC support, I'd been looking at the ASRock X570D4I, but that's an expensive way to go, especially as I don't need the 10 GbE NiCs or 4 DIMM slots].

So I've also been trying to purchase a Pro version of 2200/2400/3200/3400 G or GE for months... The only way to get one of those seems to be to expensive refurbished ones from Ebay, or buying a Lenovo ThinkCentre M75q Tiny, and pulling the CPU... [and those sell for $450-$650, so not a very efficient way of doing it].
 
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WANg

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Eh...Wait until the HP t740 thin clients (that’s V1756B, dual DDR4 SODIMM slots, dual M2 (NVMe and SATA) and a PCIe 3.0 x8 slot) drop in price? They were available back in April for 350-400 USD each (that’s in a turn-key configuration with RAM, SSD and software licensing for Win10 IoT in certain SKUs) - right now they are hovering at around 600 USD due to tight supply in the secondary market (evilBay or CDW outlet stateside)
 
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maes

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Nov 11, 2018
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Does anyone know of any other barebones V1000, preferably v1605b or better, with at least PCIE x8 expansion for less than $400?
There's the Sapphire IPC-FP5V series, available with up to a V1807B and with a 10GbE version available as well. Looks like the V1605b variant would be in the $350-$400 range.
 

3nodeproblem

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Jun 28, 2020
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I spent quite some time researching this some months back. Would be really awesome to hear if anyone as real-world experience. For my glusterfs cluster, I made the decision to bet on X570D4I for servers instead, due 10GE, easy access to PCIe/8xSATA via oculink and concern that the CPU would be a bottleneck.

I have not seen any V1605 units with more than PCIe x4 before, the GigaIPC is the first.

There are a handful of interesting V1000 based ones apart from what others mentioned that can do ECC RAM (Udoo Bolt, iBASE 918F-1606, ASROCK 4x4). Mouser is one good place to search for these kinds of things.

The iBase MI988 is the one I managed to find with both x8 and ECC RAM, but at $800 it's outside both of our price ranges for what it is, I guess.

I do think we're in midst of a shift in the market segment between 3.5" and mITX for embedded CPUs for various use-cases and that we're going to see a lot more interesting models and lower prices within 6-12 months. We'll see if COVID's able to delay that even further.
 

WANg

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I just came across this board - the GigaIPC mITX-1605A - via web searches, and came back and found your post.

Did you ever take the plunge and purchase one?


Still seems like it's only ITX option for Ryzen embedded. It's now $325 USD [plus ~$25 shipping] direct from mitxpc [and significantly more at Amazon and NewEgg.

I'm seriously considering it as an upgrade from my backup FreeNAS setup archive, which currently has the specs listed below..
FreeNAS 11.3
ASRock Fatal1ty B450 Mini-ITX
Athlon 240GE
10Gtek X520-10G-1S-X8 - 10Gbe NIC
16 GiB RAM - G.Skill Aegis 16GB 2 x 8GB DDR4-3000 PC4-24000 CL16 [F4-300C16D-16GISB]
Chenbro SR30169 Case w/ 250W PSU
2x WD Red (White Label) 14 TiB drives
That's so that I can have ECC RAM support, and upgrade from 2 cores/4 threads to 4 cores/8 threads [and power goes from ~35W to 22W].
From the specs, the performance should be similar to a Ryzen 5 Pro 2400GE.

In order to get ECC support, I'd been looking at the ASRock X570D4I, but that's an expensive way to go, especially as I don't need the 10 GbE NiCs or 4 DIMM slots].

So I've also been trying to purchase a Pro version of 2200/2400/3200/3400 G or GE for months... The only way to get one of those seems to be to expensive refurbished ones from Ebay, or buying a Lenovo ThinkCentre M75q Tiny, and pulling the CPU... [and those sell for $450-$650, so not a very efficient way of doing it].
Check CDW outlet - the m75q-1 with the Ryzen 3 3200GE configuration were available for about 330 USD.
 

3nodeproblem

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Jun 28, 2020
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Check CDW outlet - the m75q-1 with the Ryzen 3 3200GE configuration were available for about 330 USD.
You might also check for coupons for buying directly from lenovo. In my country (JP), the national price-comparison site kakaku gives a referral link that puts it at that price for 3400GE (which is 70% off what they list it for; computers and components are generally more expensive than US or EU here). Was really close to buying but ended up doing Deskmini A300+3400G as the price was almost the same and it's more flexible for something just slightly larger.

If I would have been in the market today I would absolutely keep my eyes on newly announced ASUS PN50. Ryzen 4X00U in a really small package. Kind of regret buying my deskminis after seeing this, especially given asrocks' spotty BIOS updates and complete dismissal of linux compatibility. When reaching out to support about BIOS issues to ASROCK I was literally told to install Windows instead.
 

thigobr

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Apr 29, 2020
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Does the m75q comes with a PCIe riser/slot by default? I was unable to find out more about this detail...
 

WANg

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I spent quite some time researching this some months back. Would be really awesome to hear if anyone as real-world experience. For my glusterfs cluster, I made the decision to bet on X570D4I for servers instead, due 10GE, easy access to PCIe/8xSATA via oculink and concern that the CPU would be a bottleneck.

I have not seen any V1605 units with more than PCIe x4 before, the GigaIPC is the first.

There are a handful of interesting V1000 based ones apart from what others mentioned that can do ECC RAM (Udoo Bolt, iBASE 918F-1606, ASROCK 4x4). Mouser is one good place to search for these kinds of things.

The iBase MI988 is the one I managed to find with both x8 and ECC RAM, but at $800 it's outside both of our price ranges for what it is, I guess.

I do think we're in midst of a shift in the market segment between 3.5" and mITX for embedded CPUs for various use-cases and that we're going to see a lot more interesting models and lower prices within 6-12 months. We'll see if COVID's able to delay that even further.
i am rather skeptical about the ability for all those barebones to support ECC SODIMMs. All of them mention their ability to support it, but I don’t see much in terms of testimonials on their ability to actually do it...this is especially the case with some of those less-than-stellar vendors out there *ahem* Gigabyte Asrock. It might hit some product check mark derived from the Great Horned Owl datasheet, but actual support as in...feature verified by their QA team along with a list of supported SODIMM units, running on a stable AGESA release? Eeeeeeeh.

I also don’t think that ECC is all that critical for a 1 or 2 slot home lab machine - if goes down and it’s meant to be experimental? No biggie, backflip the SODIMM to the recycling pile and get a new one. ECC SODIMM is also more pricey. Newegg quotes a pair of 32GB non-ECC SODIMMs between 200 and 300 USD. For ECC SODIMM it's roughly 375 to 400 (you can get quotes for 260 on eBay but do you trust the ol' slow boat sale from China?). There's also the question of future re-use and re-purposing. What can you use the SODIMM for later? Maybe a network switch? Better think about that.

For enterprise, customer facing stuff? That’s a different matter, and I’ll rather gun for Eypc embedded or at least a Ryzen APU will quad RAM slot support. At least I might be able to use RDIMMs (which might support bigger DIMMs down the line).
 
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WANg

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There's the Sapphire IPC-FP5V series, available with up to a V1807B and with a 10GbE version available as well. Looks like the V1605b variant would be in the $350-$400 range.
The base 1GbE model FP5V uses the Realtek 1GbE controller, which is a no-go if you plan to use it for VSphere 7 (no Realtek 8111 native drivers), and I don't think the 10GbE model is actually sold (since the product page from Sapphire only shows the 1GbE model). For some reason almost no one uses the embedded10GbE NIC from AMD on their V-series...my guess is that there's some issues there.
 

3nodeproblem

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Jun 28, 2020
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i am rather skeptical about the ability for all those barebones to support ECC SODIMMs. All of them mention their ability to support it, but I don’t see much in terms of testimonials on their ability to actually do it...this is especially the case with some of those less-than-stellar vendors out there *ahem* Gigabyte Asrock. It might hit some product check mark derived from the Great Horned Owl datasheet, but actual support as in...feature verified by their QA team along with a list of supported SODIMM units, running on a stable AGESA release? Eeeeeeeh.

I also don’t think that ECC is all that critical for a 1 or 2 slot home lab machine - if goes down and it’s meant to be experimental? No biggie, backflip the SODIMM to the recycling pile and get a new one. For customer facing stuff? That’s a different matter, and I’ll rather gun for Eypc embedded or at least a Ryzen APU will quad RAM slot support. At least I'll be able to use RDIMMs (which might support bigger DIMMs down the line).
Agreed on e.g Asrock. Most of these are for industrial use, though, which is reflected in the price tag and my hunch that it's actually worth believing.

And absolutely, it's a subset of use-cases where it's worth chasing.
 

3nodeproblem

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Jun 28, 2020
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The base 1GbE model FP5V uses the Realtek 1GbE controller, which is a no-go if you plan to use it for VSphere 7 (no Realtek 8111 native drivers), and I don't think the 10GbE model is actually sold (since the product page from Sapphire only shows the 1GbE model). For some reason almost no one uses the embedded10GbE NIC from AMD on their V-series...my guess is that there's some issues there.
The iBase boards I mentioned above (918F and MI988) were the only ones I found with Intel NICs rather than RT (I211AT for both)
 

WANg

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Agreed on e.g Asrock. Most of these are for industrial use, though, which is reflected in the price tag and my hunch that it's actually worth believing.

And absolutely, it's a subset of use-cases where it's worth chasing.
Perhaps. I ordered a DDR4 ECC unit just to test it out on my t740 thin client. It's not stated as supported, but then Ryzen V1000s are not stated with 32GB SODIMM support, but mine runs just fine with them. Hey, you never know sometimes.
 

3nodeproblem

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Perhaps. I ordered a DDR4 ECC unit just to test it out on my t740 thin client. It's not stated as supported, but then Ryzen V1000s are not stated with 32GB SODIMM support, but mine runs just fine with them. Hey, you never know sometimes.
I'd assume ECC not being reported as supported always means it isn't (since it's additional functionality) while supported RAM sizes and frequencies might be higher than documented. I have zero experience or data to back the former up, just a guess.
 

WANg

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The iBase boards I mentioned above (918F and MI988) were the only ones I found with Intel NICs rather than RT (I211AT for both)
Well, that's an 800 dollar board, and you can do much more with 800 USD if you spend it on something else. There is also the DFI GH171 (the industrial board "mirror" to the HP t740). That one claims to do ECC and has a PCIe x8 slot, but its dual NICs are also Realtek 8111C based. DFI products are well known to us since its RX427BB variant is the DT122, a cheap alternative the HP t730...and they are popular here as pfsense boxes. They are noisy but fairly reliable. That one is quoted at 536 USD - ridiculous but less so. The same NIC is also used in the Asus PN50 - also a Realtek. On these AMD Industrial 4 inch cubes the NIC is almost like a low key freebie.

There is also the Kontron D3713V (which in its D2 model is the V1605B variant). That one use a single Intel i211 and a Realtek 8111C. It claims to be a Fujitsu design manufactured in Der Vaterland (Germany). My observation is...oh, so a variant of that would likely be going into a Fujitsu Futro "big" thin client in the not-too-distant future, then. That one is probably not that cheap either since no one wants to quote spot pricing, and is a classic case of "if you need to ask, you probably can't afford it".

Note that there is nothing inherently wrong with the Realtek 8111C - its well supported in AMD DASH configurations for remote management, Realtek Linux driver quality saw improvements to the point where it's no longer a radioactive trash fire, and the Intel i211 is well supported by VMware VSphere 7 because, well, it's a recent Intel product, and Realtek doesn't...because Realtek is run by a bunch of pennypinching garden gnome who doesn't give a rat's badunkadunk about VMWare. Do note that if you want to do some advanced networking (say, SRIOV), neither one supports that feature (the Ryzen V1000 series can do limited SRIOV in Linux but it's based on firmware support and the NIC - I tested it on my t740 with Solarflare and Mellanox cards). In that case, Eypc Embedded (and really, AMD, start selling them chips. I dunno, give them away to Lenovo for an AMD version of the ThinkSystem SE350 if you want to win mindshare).

My recommendation? If you want them cheap, keep an eye on big thin client development with repurposing in mind. Both Dell-Wyse and Fujitsu Futro are due new thin client designs in the next 6-9 months, and there's a chance they will be AMD Ryzen embedded based (the Lenovo variants are m715q/m75q based so they are not worth keeping an eye on, and the Igel UD7 is based on a 4 year old AMD SoC and was introduced last year). Their extended (big) variants in the past tend to have Win10 IoT firmware, M2 storage slot and PCIe for GPU support (Radeon E9173). Since the HP t740 thin clients are already Ryzen V1000 based, once the market saturates (2021?) they'll also come down in price. Of course, AMD might be pushing the V2000s by then.
 
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dmarshman

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The reason you lot are only finding expensive boards is because the V1000 line is for embedded devices. They're unfortunately not going to turn up in any cheap consumer motherboards. If you can live without PCIe slots (there's also a fanless version): ASRock AMD Ryzen Embedded CPU Barebone 4X4 BOX-V1000M SoC Dual GLAN Support Triple Displays Mini / Booksize Barebone System - Newegg.com
We found a cheap[ish] one... it's in the OP.
GigaIPC AMD Ryzen V1605B Quad Display Dual GbE LAN Mini ITX Motherboard

The question I asked was if anyone had taken the plunge and purchased the GigaIPC board...

It's ~$320 USD for a mini-ITX motherboard with an included low-power [12-25 W] processor that's equivalent to an underclocked Ryzen 5 Pro 2400 GE [35 W TDP part].. i.e. 4 core, 8 threads, Vega 8 gfx, and ECC support... and it still boosts to 3.6 GHz.

That's fundamentally the same price as buying a [$140] B450/B550 ITX motherboard and a [~$180] Ryzen 5 Pro GE APU [if you could even buy them at retail* - there's usually a minimum buy of 12 units or more..]
 
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