1156 H55 Boards 2x x16??

[lettuce]

Do any of the H55 socket 1156 mobos support 2x x16 pci-e slots or are they all just 1x x16 and 1x x4 slots?

 

[RichIbizaSport]

Dont think there are any 16x 16x. The best your going to get is 8x 8x. You'll only lose a couple of fps.

I know the gigabyte ud4 is 8x8x

 

[lettuce]

So if you run 2 cards, will the both be forced at x4 or will 1 run x16 and the other x4? was looking at the ud3

 

[Freddie1980]

Do any of the H55 socket 1156 mobos support 2x x16 pci-e slots or are they all just 1x x16 and 1x x4 slots?

Hold on I not sure what your asking here. Do you mean a H55 board that has 2x PCI-E 16x slots or a H55 that has 2x 16x PCi-E slots that actaully run at the full 16x speed when two cards are present?

If it's the former then your out fo luck, the only boards that support full x16/x16 when two cards are present are the X58 range.

 

[thingemajib]

the only boards that support full x16/x16 when two cards are present are the X58 range.

i thought some of the higher end p55's with nf200 chips could do 16x/16x

 

[Knightinator]

thingemajib is right i think. The mobo's with the nf200 chips can do 16x/16x. I'm not sure how much digging round to find them you'll have to do though, I remember looking a week or two back and i was having trouble finding any.

[EDIT] This is the article I read i think: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/p55-crossfire-nf200,2537-9.html

 

[Freddie1980]

i thought some of the higher end p55's with nf200 chips could do 16x/16x

They do but to be honest by the time you add in a nf200 it pushes the cost of P55 to the point where your better off getting a X58 based platform.

 

[lettuce]

Yeah what im after is a mobo that will do x16 on both slots when 2 cards are used. How much of a performance hit would it be for the boards that when having 2 pci-e cards forces the speed of both of them to x4??

Does the, Asus P7H57D-V Evo Intel H57 do x16 on both cards? From what im reading in the info description it would appear to?

 

[cmndr_andi]

As said before, for the s1156 there are only a few boards that can do proper x16x16, and they use nf200 chips to get the extra PCIe lanes. Also, they generally cost more than the bottom end X58 boards (that do x16x16 natively), so in most cases you would be better off going X58 (or AMD 790FX/890FX) than buying a x16x16 P55 board.

For the board you mention, this is what the ASUS technical specs say:

2 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (single at x16 or dual at x8/x8 mode)
1 x PCIe 2.0 x1 (5GT/s, blue slot)
2 x PCIe 2.0 x1 (2.5GT/s, gray slots)
2 x PCI
*Dual x8 mode is only supported by Intel non-Integrated graphics (Lynnfield) processors. For more detail please visit www.Intel.com

Therefore you need to be using a lynnfield i5 750 or a s1156 i7 to be able to use the x8x8 mode.

As for performance hit, it isn't much for current cards when using x8x8 compared to x16x16 - it seems to only reduce the performance a few % at the moment. However, in the future, graphics cards will be even more bandwidth intensive - so having x16x16 available will likely give you a longer useful life for your motherboard.

 

[Freddie1980]

On the Asus H57D-V Evo the PCI-E sockets will run at x8/x8 in crossfire/sli mode which is fine for multiple video card setups, it's only when the 2nd PCi-e socket drops to x4 you notice a drop in performance (as much as 25% accordinig to one review I've seen).

Again though at £167 you have to ask yourself if you really need a H57 chipset when you can get an x58 for less money that has native x16/x16 which seems really important to you.

 

[lettuce]

So all x58 mobos will do x16 on 2 pci-e slots, is this just in SLI or each card one there own in the 2 pci-e x16 slots?

 

[cmndr_andi]

So all x58 mobos will do x16 on 2 pci-e slots, is this just in SLI or on their own aswell?

Yes, all X58 boards will do x16 on both their main PCI-e slots.

This is for both independent dual card configurations and combined GPU arrangements (like SLI and Crossfire).

Please bear in mind that not all X58 boards do SLI (though all do crossfire), however the vast majority do. I believe the cheapest SLI enabled X58 board is the Gigabyte X58A-UD3R which retails on OCUK for £157. The main one to watch out for is the ASUS P6T SE, this board performs great and usually sells for a cheap price - but it does not support SLI.

Also, if you see a good priced XFX X58 board - walk away. Its a really terrible board - even though it does support SLI.

 

[Freddie1980]

So all x58 mobos will do x16 on 2 pci-e slots, is this just in SLI or on their own aswell?

Sorry I'm not sure what you mean by 'on their own aswell' but I'll have a go at answering you question anyway. On X58 the PCI-E theX16 slots will run at full x/16 speeds no matter what your using the slot for, they will be X16 if you have Crossfire/SLI setup or not.

 

[lettuce]

Cheers help guys, got the DFI LANPARTY JR X58-T3H6 from a competitor in the end, was cheaper than any x58 cards on here by a fair margin, otherwise would have got the Gigabyte UD3R

 

[cmndr_andi]

Fair enough, it seems to be a good board from this review.

However, this DFI is only a micro ATX, not full ATX like most other X58 boards. So the expansion options are somewhat limited.

 

[lettuce]

Yeah, i didnt want a massive mobo, the smaller the better