Getting ready for big cards...

[zedman3d]

Am i gonna get worse 'horsepower' from running something monstrous like 2 9800GX2's if the motherboard isnt PCI-E 2.0 compatible and runs each of the PCIE slots at x8 in SLi mode?

Im hoping it doesnt matter. *Crosses fingers*

 

[b1gapl]

Graphic cards don't really use or require the full bandwidth of the PCIe slots.

 

[zedman3d]

So its going to be exactly the same?

 

[b1gapl]

No, not really. But you wouldn't notice the difference.

 

[zedman3d]

Ok thank you.

 

[Pinscher]

If you're gonna spend the cash on getting 2 9800GX2's you would only be doing it justice if you bought a PCI-E 2.0 mobo instead of running them in SLI x8 IMO.

 

[zedman3d]

The problem is that i MUST buy all the parts at my local shop (AUS Sydney). So the only motherboard like that they have is double the price of the one ive selected.

 

[veedubfreak]

As long as you have a 680i board it runs in dual 16x mode. Only craptacular 650i boards run 8x/8x and YES you will notice the difference on 8x/8x vs 16x/16x. I have had both types of boards and the 8x SLI did in fact bottleneck the sli performance.

 

[zedman3d]

Okay thank you, im gonna see if i can find me a sweet 780 board...

 

[Mordred]

Sorry to kind of hijack this thread. veedubfreak, are you saying that all 680i boards support pcie 2.0? Or are you saying that although they might not support pcie 2.0, they do support dual 16x mode?

I'm actually thoroughly confused now. Let me try to give an example.

Newegg.com - ASUS MAXIMUS EXTREME LGA 775 Intel X38 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
^^This board says that it supports pcie 2.0 x16

Newegg.com - ABIT IN9 32X-MAX LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
^^This board, although 680i, does not support pcie 2.0, but it does support dual 16x mode.....I think.

So what would the difference between the 2 boards be in relation to running video cards that are designed for pcie 2.0?