PCI-e 4x Limtation

I'm talking about the limitation of the motherboard chipset. :p
For example the ASrock 4core Dual-VSTA and it's predesessor offer only 4x PCI-e bandwidth because they are both native AGP boards. Just wondering the performance impact.
 
Cairnsey said:
I'm talking about the limitation of the motherboard chipset. :p
For example the ASrock 4core Dual-VSTA and it's predecessor offer only 4x PCI-e bandwidth because they are both native AGP boards. Just wondering the performance impact.
Click to expand...

Ah I see what your getting at now, I would imagine some performance impact though. Perhaps a more informed opinion will come along soon enough. :)
 
Well, the bandwidth available will be 1GB/s to the graphics port. Now, depending on your graphics card, this may or may not have a performance impact. On an 800GTS for example, expect lower performance. Most graphic cards at the moment are very happy running on 8x. 16x isn't utilised yet properly. Think back to AGP, cards only suffered about 5-10% drop from 8x to 4x, so I'd imagine it was much the same, speculatively speaking.
 
I'd probably buy a galaxy 7600gs with DDR2 (basically a GT)as I slowly upgrade each component bit by bit until I have a system I'm happy to keep for a few years. As you can tell by my sig, I'm way overdue an upgrade. I Would be getting an ASrock 4Core-Dual-VSTA & e4300. I'd use my 9700Pro for a month or so then buy the gfx card (£40). Do you think this card would be bandwidth limited, if it's only cards like the 8800gtx and gts then surely not?
 
I'd doubt that card would be limited in fairness. That sort of card would be fine IMO on that board. You have to think of it from ASRock's point of view too, they would not release something that would prevent the board from being used reliably with lower end cards. PCIe x4 should suffice there.
 
So AGP 8x is 2.1Gb/s, PCI-e 4x is 1Gb/s, so AGP 4x (Which I'm currently on at the mo) is going to be 1.05Gb/s vs 1Gb/s of PCI-e.
I've used a 7600GS AGP in my system at 4x and my results with the same card in an 8x AGP system were very similar, so, I should expect little difference again when moving to PCI-e, correct?
 
I did some testing back in feb 06 when i got my first sli mainboard, i came to the conclusion that 16x was ott, 8x was still ott and 4x had a very small drop in speed on an x1900xtx.
A 7600 series card should have no problem.
 
lay-z-boy said:
Nope, although the marketing department will want you to believe so. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
Yeah, I mean dual 16x SLi is pointless too, you barely reach 8GB/s for 16x using dual 8x SLi - it's all marketing.
 
I meant to actually function, to work. I.E It won't actually function in an 8x board, even though it wouldn't be starved of bandwidth.
 
Cairnsey said:
I meant to actually function, to work. I.E It won't actually function in an 8x board, even though it wouldn't be starved of bandwidth.
Click to expand...
No, I think it means it needs a mechanical 16x slot, though electrically would run at 8x.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom