P55 motherboards and multi-gpu.

[Smite]

Hey.

I understand that this would be purely hypothetical on these boards, due to the severe lack of anyone coming from the area that these are all out.

But.

I'm thinking of upgrading from my relatively crappy setup atm.

I wanted to do 920 D0 + x58 mobo but i heard that 920 D0 was being phased out at i5 launch. This is bad for me, because I will probbaly take a while to gather the funds to splurge on more parts, as it usually does.

So, I looked at alternatives, namely the p55 mobo's.

But what's keeping me back from making the jump completely is the talk that they suck for multi-gpu's, (sli + crossfire) and that if i have a setup like this, i should get i7.

Which leaves me at three points:

1) Get i5 + p55 mobo.

2) Get 3-400 pounds reeeally quick and buy (hiiighly unlikely)

3) Possibly buy some preowned - only problem with this, is that they might go a bit..8800 ultra, if you get my meaning. Really expensive.

Can anybody clear this multi-gpu stuff up for me?

 

[JonJ678]

What do you mean by poor multigpu support? Lacking sli/crossfire or that the processor can't keep up with the multiple cards and becomes the bottleneck?

The asus 3 maximus is a P55 matx board which supports sli and crossfire, has two x16 pci-e slots. I think it looks excellent as a gaming board.

However I think the solution you're seeking is am3 and amd. i7 doesn't make much sense for a gamer, and P55 isn't out yet.

I can say that the rumours that the 920 was going to be dropped don't appear to be coming true, the 920 is now expected to be on the cards for quite some time to come

 

[mdjmcnally]

The talk of P55 being poor at multi gpu is purely the fact that will be x8 and x8 for the gpu rather the x16 and x16 for the x58. The slots on the p55 is x16 and x16 but electrically will be x8 if running crossfire or sli.

Is no different to how the P45 and x48 differed in the number of PCI-E lanes.

Unless planning on buying 2 5870x2 cards you aren't going to suffer with it.

 

[Smite]

Phew, that's good to know.

I wanted to future proof my system real good (My CPU atm is pretty crappy tbh), but I couldn't afford the i7 stuff yet.

I'm planning 2 5850's in crossfire though. Well, debating. Will i suffer, or is it just when im at high res (like on a 30" screen)?

EDIT: (just occured to me all the stuff i wanna get isnt out yet )

 

[Arcane]

I've been looking into this as well and haven't found anything definitive as to it making a real world difference. The next generation is nearing and saturating a PCI-E2 8x lane is feasible.

Some of evga's P55's are using the NF200 to provide extra lanes for Tri-SLI;

the switching is designed to make best performance in each scenario.

First slot is always natively connected to cpu
First slot is switched to x8 if 2/3/4 connected.
2 is always x16 from nf200.
3 is x16 if 4 is not filled

this brings performance similar to x58 in single, dual, triple, triple + physx scenario compared to other ways of laying.

This explanation seems to think it could matter. I suppose it depends how "high end" you go with the cards.