PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

Hi,

Whilst some download completes I just took a look at AsRock Industrial motherboards - I just can't believe PCI slot boards are still being made - And this is one that works with DDR5 - I don't think I'll be looking into this as I've got enough boards! - But for anyone who has PCI cards this could be of interest.

Don't know the cost or availability or where to buy but here it is!

https://www.asrockind.com/en-gb/IMB-1713

There were ISA slot boards made for 15 years past the standard, embedded & industrial applications will have small tier manufacturers that build component boards for specific applications and those designers don't care as much about the latest & greatest as the speed/bandwidth requirements aren't usually a factor. Larger traces & slower signalling speeds can also be a benefit for applications where robust longevity is more of a concern than keeping up with the joneses. One of the companies I worked for in 1999-2003 (which was bought out halfway in 2001) still uses the PCI bus to create video editing hardware boxes that work up to 4K just fine (whereas on the desktop PC we think PCIe is a requirement, due to GPU's and i/o boards that require it).

It depends entirely on what is being done.

Thanks for the link, MSI, ASRock and even Supermicro *still* make boards we can all use!

DFI still offers PCI, too.

https://www.dfi.com/product/index/1628

Great.

The good thing about all of these boards (intended for industrial and workstation applications) is they tend to lack the gamer/home user additional onboard devices that can cause issues for us as Scope users.

nebelfuerst wrote: ↑Tue Dec 12, 2023 8:21 am DFI still offers PCI, too.

https://www.dfi.com/product/index/1628

Yes.

But it does look like the DFI has a bunch of capacitors sitting at the front of the PCI slots, which would very likely interfere with the "low-rider" profile of SC boards like Pulsar 2 and Scope Pro.
The Asrock, on the other hand, seems to have little in the way there.
Too bad that the south-bridge chip (I assume it is) on the Asrock board is directly underneath where the PCI board would extend.
May not make a difference, but you never know with heat being a bad thing in general...

Most industrial mainboards provide the specs for maximum sizes of cards. Some cards in our company use the maximum size for pci cards and they all fit in all mainboards we ever tried. ( we tried more than 30 boards over the years)
It would be a surprise to me, of scope didn't care about PCI specs.
"fit" means, that sometimes there is less than 1mm of space left, but it works.

fraz wrote: ↑Mon Dec 11, 2023 4:46 pm
https://www.asrockind.com/en-gb/IMB-1713

I investigated a bit more.

On this mobo, the PCI slots use AS Media ASM1085 PCI-to-PCIe bridge IC connected to the Intel PCH H610 chipset.
At least, each slot delivers 25W max..

AFAIK you´d need native (not PCI-to PCIe bridged) PCI slots delivering 5V current for Scope PCI cards.
I downloaded docs,- but nowhere any hint according PCI slot voltage.

So, before buying a lemon, better ask AsRock.



Bud

Voltage can be determined by the slot keying:

https://www.ni.com/en/support/documenta ... ility.html

valis wrote: ↑Fri Dec 15, 2023 5:39 pm Voltage can be determined by the slot keying:

https://www.ni.com/en/support/documenta ... ility.html

Thx Valis,- great info.

But what about realtime data throughput of PCI-to-PCIe bridged PCI slots being connected to the Intel chipset?



Bud

PCI bridge chips have plenty of bandwidth, it’s going to be down to the motherboard maker implementing it properly. Since our DSP chips are far from the only timing critical implementation these boards will be used for, the workstation/embedded solutions would likely all work equally well for reasons given above (they don’t throw a ton of extra features on these boards to compete with the consumer oriented solutions).

all motherboards since at least socket 775 have had the bridge, since PCI has technically been obsolete since about then. only the socket 1155 motherboards did not work correctly. some of the motherboards after that had the bridge and were some of the best Scope motherboards.(socket 1150/1)

@ Gary and Valis,-

thx for the info,- good to know !



Bud