Why are all Threadripper boards so samey?

Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.

Krobar

Member
Aug 25, 2012
54
10
8
Have been looking for a Threadripper board and it is getting irritating that every board uses the 16+8+16+8 layout. Why not a 3x16 layout, eg. X16+Space+Space+X16+Space+Space+X16, they could offer bifurcation on the bottom slot which would allow for heavy IO usage with dual triple slot graphics or triple X16 triple slot graphics in an XL-ATX case.

Are manufacturers forced to follow a reference design or is TR only able to support 16+8+16+8 layouts? Or am I one of only a small minority that wants something other than the default layout?
 

mstone

Active Member
Mar 11, 2015
505
118
43
46
If you're not doing graphics even the two 16 slots is annoying and another 8 would be better.
 

i386

Well-Known Member
Mar 18, 2016
4,220
1,540
113
34
Germany
That's another thing I noticed none of the boards have PCI switching.
A plx chip alone costs $40+, adding them to consumer/prosumer boards would increase the price drastically.
Also which gamer needs more than 2 gpus? :D
 

Patrick

Administrator
Staff member
Dec 21, 2010
12,511
5,792
113
@i386 the bigger 96/97 lane PLX switches are a few hundred dollars. That is what is making EPYC look attractive for NVMe chassis as an example.

Manufacturers know that the vast majority of gaming workstations have a single GPU, rarely another PCIe card, and 1-2 drives. When you are going after a niche segment like Threadripper where the volumes are low, you have to build products that target the largest amount of users.

There is little point for a manufacturer building a niche board for a niche segment because volumes are too low in turn pricing the board out of the market. A board that the manufacturer sells for $500 and retails for $550 is only a $250K product at 500 units sold. That is not enough to pay materials + overhead in many cases.

I know we get a lot of pricing feedback on niche embedded boards. This is the exact issue they face. Some of the smaller vendors making Atom C3000 boards are doing production runs in the 250-500 board range. That drives up costs. As costs go up, retail pricing goes up, and fewer people are in the market for that type of board. Economies of scale play a big part here.
 

i386

Well-Known Member
Mar 18, 2016
4,220
1,540
113
34
Germany
@i386 the bigger 96/97 lane PLX switches are a few hundred dollars. That is what is making EPYC look attractive for NVMe chassis as an example.
Good to know. The only price I found was for a 24 lanes switch from a post in 2012. (Before Broadcom bought PLX and increased the prices)
 

mstone

Active Member
Mar 11, 2015
505
118
43
46
I know we get a lot of pricing feedback on niche embedded boards. This is the exact issue they face. Some of the smaller vendors making Atom C3000 boards are doing production runs in the 250-500 board range. That drives up costs. As costs go up, retail pricing goes up, and fewer people are in the market for that type of board. Economies of scale play a big part here.
This is definitely true. In most cases these days it's really hard to justify anything in intel's embedded range for something like a DIY firewall because the cost differential vs a generic socketed celeron/pentium solution is so high. I want to like denverton, but the retail prices just don't make it a rational option.