true 2/3way pcie 3.0 support? lga2011?

can some1 set me straight on this pls.... According to the stats of the LGA2011 platform it would be the strongest supporting platform for a SLI/crossfire PICe 3.0 setup. However further reading suggest that the current lga2011 processors dont actually have full support for dual/3way video card setups... so it sort of seems that upgrading to the lga2011 just to take full advantage of 2x/3x video cards would be a waste. Does the lga2011 processors take more advantage of the 40x channels for pcie? does the pcie 40x channels factor in to better performance of 2/3 video cards? thoughts on the best platform with dual/triple video card setups in mind?

s2011 is the only one with 40 pcie lanes without a support chip I believe..they are pcie3 as well.

EarthDog said:

s2011 is the only one with 40 pcie lanes without a support chip I believe..they are pcie3 as well.

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meaning the sandy bridge lga2011 processors don't have support for the full pcie3.0; but when ivy bridge becomes avail in lga2011 it will?

SB-E IIRC is capable of PCIE 3.0 there were issues with getting test smaples to achieve certification in time for launch.

wiki shows it as 40x PCIE lanes 2.0 and 3.0

I will be looking more into this in the next week. (x79 board just arrived)

dtrunk said:

meaning the sandy bridge lga2011 processors don't have support for the full pcie3.0; but when ivy bridge becomes avail in lga2011 it will?

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sorry, by support chip I meant like nforce200 (not in s2011).

http://www.overclockers.com/asus-maximus-iv-extreme-z-motherboard-review/

This board features the NVIDIA NF200 PCIe-lane-granting chip (on the left). Strangely, if you run two GPUs they run at 8x + 8x, but if you run the full three, the NF200 kicks in and runs them at 8x + 16x +16x.

Click to expand...

PS: great review. god that card is beautiful.

Is this what you meant Earth?? I don't see this for the LGA2011 though. And correct me if i'm wrong, but this is only an upgrade a 3 cards, 2 will still run 8x/8x. I was looking for true x16/x16 pcie3.0 support, from the cards, to the controller, to the mobo, to the processor. it seems the dual x16 pcie3 setup is a myth.

Edit: I'm after overall bandwidth for the vid cards, not actually needing the full pcie3 support; as i'm sure most of the pcie3 specs are just for marketing right now.

Its not on s2011, no (mentioned that).

Point is, you are not close to saturating a 8x PCIe3 (=PCIe2 16x). So though you are looking for magic numbers, there really isnt a point since that bandwidth isnt used in the first place.

reading isn't my strongest skill

I'm still quite confused about this. I was under the impression that non-lga2011 platforms didn't support more than the 16x channels to the cpu from vid card; however the lga2011 platform supports 40x (hence wanting to upgrade to the 2011 for future upgrade-ability.) I want to run SLI/xfire and make sure that my setup was worth the investment; i don't see why people run 2 $500 vid cards at 8x/8x, i feel like i'd be getting short changed.

I'm trying to weigh my upgrade options; currently considering a SLI of my gtx560ti on a new intel platform or stepping in to a ATI 7series vid card and new intel setup (assuming i'd buy a second ati 7series card to run xfire later.) I was looking at the new 4core i7 vs older i7/i5 2(5/6/7)000 series cpu; hard to tell what platform will be best for my xfire/sli vid game system. I'm not ruch, but I will probably drop about $1k.

Edit: i will be upgrading a few other things too, case and probably gpu WC loop, would i need stroner PSU for SLI GTX560ti (or say xfire 78xx cards?)

You may have missed my underlying point... it doesnt matter. No card out saturates PCIe2 16x (= PCIe3 8x), so it really doesnt matter.

so then it's all just marketing and i should mayb invest in the cheaper i5 platform (good mobo for OCn) n then extra $ on good vid card?

You talking s1155 and Sandybridge, in which Ivybridge is coming out soon? If you dont need 6 cores, i would wait just a bit and go ivy bridge. its also PCIe3.

yeah just wait for IB, its going to open up more cores to