Asus p6t6

Can anyone explain the board PCIe layout?

Is it
1. nVIDIA (PCIe x16/8, PCIe x8, PCIe x16/8, PCIe x8), PCIe x16, PCIe x4 OR
2. PCIe x16, nVIDIA (PCIe x8, PCIe x16/8, PCIe x8,PCIe x16/8), PCIe x4?

In the first case would be great for super workstation, in the second - for stockbrokers only (24 monitors from standard box - KOOL!) - too long ribbon would not work.

Super workstation: special box (see the back panel of this one), 2 x ATI FirePro V8750 (or a couple of Radeon HD 4870 X2 - if do not need stereo and super advanced color - faster and cheaper) in nVIDIA x16 slots, x16 to 4 x8 switch/riser (by a ribbon riser), RAID card for 16 Intel X25-E in RAID 10, FireStream 9250 (or HD 4870) accelerator (if really PCIe v 2.0 will use nearly half of the bandwidth) and 10-20GB LAN card.

this should answer your question....
http://www.asus.com/news_show.aspx?id=13559

Evilsizer said:

this should answer your question....
http://www.asus.com/news_show.aspx?id=13559

Click to expand...

It does not, cause there is no manual.
There were at least two photos of the board with different nVidia chip placement - one is surely for the first position, the other leaves the way to doubt.

ask your question a different way then... cause now you have me lost, cause everything about how the PCIE lanes works/setup. is answered in that link, but here is the product page with the same stuff.
http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?modelmenu=2&model=2697&l1=3&l2=179&l3=815&l4=0
however Asus as you know doesnt have the manual on their download site.

im going to take a stab at this though.... if i assume you mean just popluting all the slots with no SLI or CF setup. if all blue slots are populated only they would operate at x16. the white slot is the only one by it self so that is the x16 slot@x4 per the specs. the 2 black slots can only operate at x8. assuming all x16 slot population, 2 blue slots would then be x8 with one of them at x16. blacks x16 slots at x8, of course the white can only operate at x4. did that answer it?

I need exact slots layout.

If slot 1 (neareat to I/O) is wired through nVIDIA chip (layout 1) then slot 5 is wired directly to the north bridge and is thrue PCIe x16 v 2.0 that might be extended by a ribbon cable and active riser to four PCIe x8 v 2.0 channels - then the board might be used for a powerful workstation.

If that slot is wired directly to the north bridge, it may not be extended (cable lenght will be too long for reliable signal transfer).
The nVIDIA x16 PCIe v1.1 coming from the slot 5 would not provide the nessesary bandwidth

Expansion cards needed:
2 PCIe x8 (v.1.1) RAID controllers (one for 8 intel SSD in RAID 0, one for archive/backup HDD array), AMD FireStream 9250 (will consume up to half of the original x16 v.2.0 bandwidth)

(Well, a couple of graphics cards are just not mentioned)

well i cannt assume based on the what they are saying in the spec page, as looking at X58 and Nforce 200 chipset specs. the reason why i say that is cause X58 has 36 pcie 2.0 lanes the sb has 6 lanes(possible PCIE 1.0 but dought it). the Nforce 200,has 32 lanes so 2 x16 slots or 4 x8 slots.

there is no one site with just a diagram of the Nforce 200 but there is this one
http://techreport.com/r.x/nvidia-nforce-780i/block.jpg
that shows how the Nforce 200 is tied into the 780i board.
here is the diagram for the X58 IOH/SB
http://www.intel.com/Assets/Image/diagram/X58_blockdiagram.gif


which leaves to many possiblities to how they set it up. as it could be 4 slots(2 blue,2 black) to the NF200 since all 3 blue slots would be x16. now since at most NF200 can support 2 x16@x16 or 4 x16@x8, one of the blue slots has to be connected to the x58 IOH. im inclinded to say the first slot on the board is to the X58 with 2/3/4/5 going to NF200, leaving the last slot to the x58 IOH. given its placement on the board though, i would have to say it is actually routed thru the SB. the other possiblity is the first 4 slots are routed thru the x58 IOH with 5 to the NF200 or some combo there of. sure is to bad they dont have the manual, cause now this is going to drive me up the wall....

Nforce 200 DOES NOT support PCIe v.2 on the splitted slots, though might support somewhat overclocked frequenses (up to 25%). That is why I've written in the previouse post that they are PCIe v.1.1

Same true to all video cards exept for the latest ATI. So 4-way CrossFire with new cards will work nicely in 4 x8 PCIe slots (again, exept for x2 cards - but only two may be installed aniway).

Might be that latest revisions of 280 also support v.2, though the original one did not (it needed 13 connection to work full-speed on both v. 1.1 and v. 2.0 slots).

Really only Radeon HD 4850 X2 and Radeon HD 4870 X2 may not only fully utilise v. 1.1, but need up to 12 v. 2.0 lines. HD 4870 needs up to 14 v. 1.1 or 7 v. 2.0 lines.

Wow that's enough x16 lane jive to really make anyone's head spin but I think I may understand it now and that is scary.

stasdm said:

Nforce 200 DOES NOT support PCIe v.2 on the splitted slots, though might support somewhat overclocked frequenses (up to 25%). That is why I've written in the previouse post that they are PCIe v.1.1

Click to expand...

you mean if they split one NF200 to 4 slots? that doesnt make any sense, if it has 32lanes for pcie 2.0. that is 16 lanes per one slot for a dual slot board on pcie 2.0. still making it pcie 2.0 if they split it agian, to 4 x8 slots. i have not seen one spec sheet or mention of the NF200 being PCIE 1.1 if split. the NF200 was used on the 780i board aka 680i with NF200 for pcie 2.0 support. now while the 780i supports tri-sli, it is pcie 1.1 thru the MPC and 2.0 thru the NF200.
http://techreport.com/articles.x/13790
i mean google Nforce 200 and you will see 780i reviews/specs posted by many review sites. with that same diagram from NV about how the NF200 works, i mean it shows you 2 x16 electrical pcie 2.0 right there. even people posing GPUz shots with SLI(not tri sli) showing PCIE 2.0. im not sure what more you want to prove it is PCIE 2.0 from the NF200 chip. my be call evga or even NV if you can. if you can find something that shows the NF200 is not pcie 2.0 then please post it. im not debating anything or argueing, like i pointed out. i havent seen one thing that suggests NF200 = pcie 1.1 with the slots split up.

Evilsizer said:

. i havent seen one thing that suggests NF200 = pcie 1.1 with the slots split up.

Click to expand...

Intel's D5400XS (2 x NF200) - none of Intel tech. documents states it has v. 2.0 slotes (though some Intels ads do), more than that, all early revisions of the board documentetion stated v.1.1 slots.

See also NF100 description (NF200 is absolutly identical to it). Really nVIDIA never fully supported v.2 - and this is one of the reasons they guitted Intel chipsets market.

Earlier Intel chipsets also could not support real v.2 - only overcklocked v.1.1 (up to 2.5 GB/s per 4 lines - see 5400 manual) - x58 is the first that really does (that is why it is so hot, despite less functions done)

All ealier nVIDIA/ATI fass about v. 2.0 was just a marketing - else it would be supported by RAID cards producers - but I still could not find any (more than 8-slot SATA) RAID card on PCIe x4. Same for 10GB LAN.

Sure you'll see some in a year.