Motherboard PCI Speed?

[mc995599]

Motherboard Query

Twitpic - Share photos and videos on Twitter

I have been thinking of adding another HD5850 to my build and checked my motherboards website if crossfire was possible and this info emerged, was wondering if anyone could shed some light on what this means and if it will affect my performance also which slot should my single hd5850 be in black or blue

Thanks so much!

**sorry probably could've posted in hardware and devices but its still relevant**

 

[LiquidSnak]

Your single card should be in blue. If it's in the black one, you will notice an increase in performance just from that.

 

[stormy13]

Will it affect performance, yes. Will it affect it enough to notice, probably not.

Another thing to consider is if you or intend to use either PCI-E x1 slots, you will lose both of them as well as two USB ports on the back panel,

*The PCIEX16_2 slot shares bandwidth with the PCIEX1_1 slot, PCIEX1_2 slot and USB3_34 connector. The PCIEX16_2 runs at x1 mode by default for system resource optimization.

if you set the second x16 slot to x4 mode.

 

[mc995599]

Will it affect performance, yes. Will it affect it enough to notice, probably not.

Another thing to consider is if you or intend to use either PCI-E x1 slots, you will lose both of them as well as two USB ports on the back panel,

*The PCIEX16_2 slot shares bandwidth with the PCIEX1_1 slot, PCIEX1_2 slot and USB3_34 connector. The PCIEX16_2 runs at x1 mode by default for system resource optimization.

if you set the second x16 slot to x4 mode.

So are you saying that with one card both slots are the same and performance in a crossfire will not be impacted if I sacrifice my PCI slots and two usbs?
Thanks for your speedy response

 

[stormy13]

Didn't seem to affect a couple of GTX 480's in SLI running both a x4/x4,

GTX 480 SLI x16/x16 vs. x4/x4 - GTX 480 SLI PCIe Bandwidth Perf. - x16/x16 vs. x4/x4 | [H]ard|OCP

Edit: Even better, tests running Crossfire on your exact board,

*Asus P8P67 (PCIe 16x/4x) vs. Asus P8P67 Deluxe (PCIe 8x/8x) - HD6950s in CF tested* - AnandTech Forums

 

[bobkn]

Will it affect performance, yes. Will it affect it enough to notice, probably not.

Another thing to consider is if you or intend to use either PCI-E x1 slots, you will lose both of them as well as two USB ports on the back panel,

*The PCIEX16_2 slot shares bandwidth with the PCIEX1_1 slot, PCIEX1_2 slot and USB3_34 connector. The PCIEX16_2 runs at x1 mode by default for system resource optimization.

if you set the second x16 slot to x4 mode.

Interesting. The P8P67 Pro has 3 PCI-E X16 slots. Slots 1 and 2 run at 8X if you have cards in both. The third slot runs at X1 by default. If you set it to X4, some third-party controllers (USB3, eSATA) are disabled, along with the two PCI-E 1X slots.

I'm surprised that Asus crippled the vanilla P8P67 to that extent.

 

[stormy13]

They have to come up with some reason for having the various Pro/Deluxe/Extreme versions, and be able to charge accordingly for them.