Hello, i was wondering if connecting two oculink 4i to 8i would work, i found these “docks” on aliexpress but did not find any external 8i to pcie cards only multi 4i
Yes, you can use 2x4 to 1x8 (or 2x8 to 1x16) so long as the PCIE bus width settings are the same on both sides and there are no physical signaling problems.
Although in this particular case you might find it easier to simply get a MCIO adapter card with MCIO 8i to oculink 8i cable?
The MCIO standard is way better for signal quality and quite affordable. If you get a MCIO riser and MCIO pcie card you can effectively build your own dock with some standoffs screwed into lexan etc.
Take a look at stuff like this https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256808403233768.html and just use standoffs to screw it into https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804805645474.html
Unless you are dealing with a very adverse condition or actually trying to run gen5 pcie, you dont need the retimer and can use much cheaper cards that are just physical converters.
