What's the deal with AM4 boards having so few sata ports?

Z

ZodaEX

Supreme [H]ardness
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AMDs FM2 boads usually had eight sata ports all provided by the chipset so what is up with all these AM4 motherboards with only 4 sata ports. I'm about ready to do a budget rebuild and just might go Intel again just because it's so much easier to find a board with 6 sata ports.
 
most have m2 ports to make up for a couple less sata ports and optical drives are dying off so one less needed for that.
 
pendragon1 said:
most have m2 ports to make up for a couple less sata ports and optical drives are dying off so one less needed for that.
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Opicals are dying out? I thought 4k Blu-Ray opical drives just came out.
 
lol yes they are with maybe that one exception, there are like 2 models available. do you happen have one?
 
pendragon1 said:
lol yes they are with maybe that one exception, there are like 2 models available. do you happen have one?
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No, because I run Windows 7 and it's my understanding that they don't function under Windows 7.
 
Master_shake_ said:
I share a DVD drive over my network.

Best way I think
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I have a portable USB DVD drive that I can take from computer to computer in a pinch. I don't know how easy it is to boot off of a network DVD drive.

All the boards I used had 6 ports. Are you looking at super budget B350 boards?
 
kirbyrj said:
I have a portable USB DVD drive that I can take from computer to computer in a pinch. I don't know how easy it is to boot off of a network DVD drive.

All the boards I used had 6 ports. Are you looking at super budget B350 boards?
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Booting off CDs is so 1999 pxe or nothing
 
Mega6 said:
Media is dead, all USB now.
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I don't think you realize how general of a term "media" is. I mean, Netflix is media and as far as i'm aware it is extremely popular. Also, what does USB have to do with the discussion at hand? I'm asking about SATA ports, not USB. I've got enough external peripherals that get in the way as it is. I don't want a USB drive for regular use. I'm a power user and am into watching blu-rays.
 
I can find AMD boards in my price range with 6 SATA ports, thats not a massive problem or anything, I was just curious why socket AM4 boards with 6 SATA ports were so much less common than in the FM2/AM3 socket era but the answer about how boards have m2 ports now sort of makes it make more sense to me.
 
On fm2, 2-4 of the sata ports were controlled by a separate chip (usually also responsible for some of the usb ports), iirc. The rest were controlled by the Southbridge. With AM4, everything is controlled by the Southbridge/SoC, so there's no 3rd party chip adding additional ports. Add that some lanes are reserved for sata express or m.2 slots, and you end up with fewer ports. x370 has max 6 ports (two can be converted to pcie 1x lanes), with lower chipsets all having fewer.
 
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Well to be fair, recent intel mobo's also seem to have fewer SATA ports then some slightly older models (e.g. maximus VIII hero came with 8 SATA ports, the IX and X with only 6)

Not sure what mobo's you are looking at, but I easily found 2 gigabyte ones with 6 SATA ports without even trying much ( GA-AX370M-Gaming 3 (rev. 1.x) and the GA-AX370-Gaming 3 (rev. 1.x) )
 
Denpepe said:
Well to be fair, recent intel mobo's also seem to have fewer SATA ports then some slightly older models (e.g. maximus VIII hero came with 8 SATA ports, the IX and X with only 6)

Not sure what mobo's you are looking at, but I easily found 2 gigabyte ones with 6 SATA ports without even trying much ( GA-AX370M-Gaming 3 (rev. 1.x) and the GA-AX370-Gaming 3 (rev. 1.x) )
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what do you want like 10 ports in the front? I mean damn dude lol....still like that idea 6 is pretty acceptable plus a few U.2 ports even...that should cover you're connectivity needs lol
 
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Denpepe said:
Well to be fair, recent intel mobo's also seem to have fewer SATA ports then some slightly older models (e.g. maximus VIII hero came with 8 SATA ports, the IX and X with only 6)

Not sure what mobo's you are looking at, but I easily found 2 gigabyte ones with 6 SATA ports without even trying much ( GA-AX370M-Gaming 3 (rev. 1.x) and the GA-AX370-Gaming 3 (rev. 1.x) )
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I was looking at the cheapest ATX AM4 boards at newegg. Honestly i'm probably just going to go with Intel again for my next upgrade. It appears a coffeelake i3 will give me better gaming performance than AMD's current APU. (plus a dedicated GPU)
 
Heck you could probably hook an internal optical drive up to a SATA-USB converter and plug that into a spare USB port without too much trouble in a pinch. Or get a decent PCIe SATA controller that you can use for a few upgrade cycles
 
us-B01BBXMCSW-2.jpg


Problem solved.
 
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