@SaperPL So it looks like the PCI 3.0 riser will ACTUALLY be an issue for someone who wants to go full AMD with a 5000 series CPU and a 6000 series GPU. Without a gen 4.0 riser someone cannot utilize the Smart Access Memory technology and gain the performance boost of building a full AMD system (which I am seriously considering).
It would be massively appreciated If you could provide us with any alternative gen 4.0 risers that would be compatible with the Sentry 2.0. Thank you.
Once again, I'll be repeating myself - wait for actual benchmarks of this smart access tech in games that will actually use it. This is new stuff. It might mean the first games will have negligible gains, it might mean current "pci-e 4.0" risers may glitch out on it, it could mean it'll work flawlessly on pci-e 3.0 (we've barely passed 8 lanes of bandwidth on 3.0 with 2080TI). We'll start thinking about how to tackle it once we will see actual data on it and actual gains. I hope it better be worth it.
This is what this whole thing is about (constant real time scene/content streaming to the GPU)
So wake me up when you'll see games actually doing this in reasonable manner. Note how much RTX actually changed how games look. It might be like this again initially that first games will just barely scratch the surface of what can be done with this tech. That's because most of the people won't have the hardware to run it properly on PCs.
Why is the Sentry's GPU compatibility only 40mm, why the case is 66mm thick? I think it should be triple slot...
That's because in this type of construction you can't have the slot right at the edge of the case so there's space from either side to make a structure holding the case together. You won't make a bend right next to the pci slot hole. Also if you put fans directly next to a punch out perforation like in sentry or a4, essentially most of perforation types, it'll make turbulence and cause noise. Also the case is made for GPUs with reasonable wattage and triple slot cards are not really reasonable wattage cards for SFF cases like this.
3M didn't update the website. The 3M is able to handle PCIe gen4 up to 25gbs "
https://www.3m.com.tw/3M/zh_TW/interconnect-tw/resources/TwinAx-gaming-solution/"
Or here:
(Page 3) "Target Performance to support PCIe Gen4"
What I don't like here is that the presentation stating *target* PCIe 4.0 compliance is pre PCIe 4.0 release. It's from September 2012, the 4.0 was declared by PCI SIG in November 2011, so that's around the time they started working on it. 3M stating the *target* compliance means they are aiming for this riser to be future-proof, but at that point in time they can't know. The 4.0 spec gets finalised and released in December 2017, meaning whole five years later. Ton of stuff might have changed that 3M didn't know at the point they have made that presentation in 2012. With that said, the 3M is indeed a
member of PCI SIG so they had access to the spec as it was developed and most likely took part in development.
My point here is that I'd like to see a spec sheet specifically stating 4.0 compliance that was actually made after 4.0 release and not something marketing-style predictions made for investors years ahead of the release.
