NVIDIA NF200 x16/x16 vs. Intel x8/x8 P67 Performance Analysis

[Nelly]

Interesting results, copied off another forum.

Sometimes TweakTown give us some interesting articles, this is one of them. And the results are quite surprising

More here

 

[mmj_uk]

edit: ah didn't notice the NF200 actually performs worse.

 

[LiamJ]

So the NF200 is worse than P67, even at 16x, 16x?

 

[Final8y]

I can't find the nF200 connection block diagram. But, anyway... I don't get it, why it should be faster? Or even equal than having the GPUs directly connected to the CPU?

The nF200 must be connected somehow, it doesn't magically add 32 PCIe lanes. Looking at the block diagram of P67, it must be connected to either 8 of the 16 lanes of the CPU, or 8 of the 8 lanes of the P67 chipset itself. In the first scenario you'll have: 8x,4x,4x (nF200 connected to 8x PCIe lanes, and there is a bottleneck, how can it magically add 24x is beyond me). In the second scenario you'll have 16x,4x,4x with added latency because of the P67.

Looking at the graphic from the review, where only 2 cards are connected the first one is working at 16x using nF200, so I guess the second scenario applies. I know that the connection between the nF200 and the cards are working at 16x, but if the nF200 is connected to the P67 at 8x PICe 2.0 then nothing will be faster than that...

Edit:

I forgot to add the P67 block diagram I was talking about:
http://www.itcode.org/wp-content/plugins/RSSPoster_PRO/cache/087c7_p67_block_diagram.png

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums...-x16-vs.-Intel-x8-x8-P67-Performance-Analysis

 

[Rroff]

NF200 with AMD cards rofl... the NF200 is a simple PCI-e splitter and has little advantage for AMD cards (its still effectively 2x8)... however with nVidia cards it can shortcut SLI transactions and potentially increase performance by 5-10% even over true 2x16.

 

[mattjd]

NF200 with AMD cards rofl... the NF200 is a simple PCI-e splitter and has little advantage for AMD cards (its still effectively 2x8)... however with nVidia cards it can shortcut SLI transactions and potentially increase performance by 5-10% even over true 2x16.

That is what I was thinking. Shouldn't they test both Nvidia and AMD? Considering it's a Nvidia chip surely Nvidia cards should be tested

 

[Nelly]

NF200 with AMD cards rofl... the NF200 is a simple PCI-e splitter and has little advantage for AMD cards (its still effectively 2x8)... however with nVidia cards it can shortcut SLI transactions and potentially increase performance by 5-10% even over true 2x16.

Yeah totally lame of Tweaktown to just use AMD Cards.

Do you know of any web links with results showing performance with SLI GTX 560 / 570 / 580's?

I'm after a new Intel motherboard and have been considering an expensive NF200 board in terms of considering turning to the Devil and going Nvidia.

 

[cmndr_andi]

This is a good article on pretty much the same topic (including SLI performance, three card performance and an X58 comparison).

 

[Rroff]

Looks like it can do the mirrored upload feature to a limited extent on AMD cards, from a quick scan of that review tho looks like it of very limited application for AMD cards over 8x8x and only really shows noticeable differences with SLI when your dealing with more than 2 cards.

 

[Rroff]

That is what I was thinking. Shouldn't they test both Nvidia and AMD? Considering it's a Nvidia chip surely Nvidia cards should be tested

Its a bit of a con IMO - tho not one perpetrated by nVidia exactly - the motherboard manufacturers put it out there like it magically adds an extra bunch of lanes whereas in reality unless your using a high end SLI setup its of limited advantage.

 

[HazardO]

I'd expect the NF200 increases latency to and from main memory, so a slight drop in performance isn't really surprising.

 

[Rroff]

The results in the graph linked to in the first post are within margin of error even for multiple runs performance is probably the same for all intents and purposes.