Yes, we use the very ASUS board you showed (and a couple other similar ones by MSI and Cablecc) that allow you to use one PCI 16x slot in "bifurcated mode" to connect 4 2TB gen4 nvme drives, which we typically configure into a 4x raid0 8TB drive.
We've been using Ryzen 3960X and more recently 5950X systems that support PCI4 drives. We buy pre-tested bare-bones 5950X systems from a systems integrator, then populate them with better drives and a full complement of memory once we get them (integrators tend to overcharge for these latter items).
Nice 👍 thanks! AMD still beats Intel on memory access and IO subsystem (PCIe lanes), and price then. Good to know that it’s not just me on the HPC market.
I will be looking close for when the PCIe 6.0 gets implemented because that will change the protocol. But still too soon as the market is delayed due ASIC shortage. Let’s see.
I am as well on the same path.. going to stay on the AM4 socket and jump to the highest core one, since I already have plenty memory to play with and there’s still some time until the new PCIe 5 get out to market.