Concept A weird idea for a weird "PIO motherboard"

[cleveland]

Have you ever thought how easy would be building a SFF *IF* the PCIe slot protrudes from the underside of the motherboard?

Just like the PIO mobos we've seen on SEA market, a while ago, that have it's PCIe slots above (considering tradicional orientation) the CPU slot!

Think about the Dan-A4 without the need of a special riser, shielding for that riser, bending capabilities of such riser, lenght of it... well, i guess you guys got it. Any right angled PCB riser would do the job and it would be virtually universal among all dual layered builds!

Let me ride this wave good: imagine for a second that we could have PCIe slots poping from both front and back sides of the motherboard! Think about all those awesome options of PCIe splitting we could have! THINK ABOUT THE HEAT DENSITY WE COULD GENERATE!!!

Well, that's it. I don't know if we'll ever have such a piece of hardware like that, but A LOT of QoL would come from this tiny "layout rearrangement".

 

[Necere]

You wouldn't even need a riser if it used a right angle PCIe slot, like this:

Probably a pipe dream though, considering that, like PIO boards, it would mostly only work in cases designed for it. Board development costs are high, so the sales volume has to be there to justify it. PIO boards are used exclusively in AIO PCs, so they get the volume that way. Such a board optimized for back-to-back layouts would likely need to go the same route of OEM adoption, vs. something that you could buy and build as a DIYer. I don't think I've seen any standalone cases designed for PIO boards, despite them having been available for a few years now.

 

[BirdofPrey]

Even if it initially sounds like a good idea, you have to realize that, from a manufacturer's standpoint, there's aren't as many cases as you might thing. First of all, given design costs, there's a high likely hood they aren't going to account for the boutique/small volume cases that float around here a lot, which leaves only a couple models of Fractal Design and Silverstone cases using a right angle riser to put the GPU next to and parallel to the motherboard. Compare that to the dozens of traditional designs from a dozen big case manufacturers, and it doesn't make much sense unless they can guarantee a high volume OEM product (in which case, like the regular PIOs it's likely to remain an OEM only design). The other snag is that if you DO account for the dozens of designs by hobbyists and small firms, they don't tend to have the GPU in the exact same place anyway, so it might not even work.

If someone IS going the OEM route, the PIO setup makes tons more sense since is simplifies cooling by putting the component side of everything on the same side of the case. This is another thing you see a lot in the boutique cases using long flexible risers to flip the GPU over.

 

[cleveland]

First of all, given design costs, there's a high likely hood they aren't going to account for the boutique/small volume cases that float around here a lot, which leaves only a couple models of Fractal Design and Silverstone cases using a right angle riser to put the GPU next to and parallel to the motherboard. Compare that to the dozens of traditional designs from a dozen big case manufacturers, and it doesn't make much sense unless they can guarantee a high volume OEM product (in which case, like the regular PIOs it's likely to remain an OEM only design). The other snag is that if you DO account for the dozens of designs by hobbyists and small firms, they don't tend to have the GPU in the exact same place anyway, so it might not even work.

well, the SFF market heavily depends on manufacturers innovation to keep on evolving. ITX, by itself, is a real proof of that. I'm 100% sure that your thoughts came around by the development of the smallers form factors...

i'm not saying it'll be top seller product, i'm not saying it'll be the most perfect piece of tech in 2019, i'm not saying someone must do a board like that... i'm just saying would be cool to have such a design and i can think of a lot of uses for it.

 

[FAQBytes]

If you're good at soldering, it's definitely possible to just do it yourself. I've done stupider things than this.