Review: PCI Express Slot Scaling Game Performance Analysis

scrub that lol sozz read it wrong

 

bingo, had revert to onboard soundcard for tri-fire

 

just wondered because it says in your sound card part SB X-FI Titanium , which i thought od that cant be right lol

 

The highest bus usage I've seen on my rig with 780s in SLI at 3.0x16 is 45%, and that was during the Monster Hunter benchmark. I'm guessing at 2.0x16 that it would be near maxed. Any chance you could do a test with that benchmark, Hilbert?

 

I'd like to see the bridgeless CrossfireX tests. Also, I'd like to see 8x and 4x tests on single cards and SLi/CrossfireX.
4x single card would be interesting to see how much of an impact it would have to run a state of the art video card with Alienware Graphics amplifier for their newest line of laptops which only runs at 4x.

 

If I buy new graphics card for $700 and it would under perform by 3%, I would not go and buy new intel system with PCIe 3.0 x16 for another $800.
If I needed more graphical power, I would simply go and buy 2nd GPU for another $700.

And I would laugh as this would be under performing by 10%, but would still provide 80% higher performance of guy who got 1 GPU + 1 extra modern MB+CPU+Memory.

 

My x16-x8-x8-x8 is screaming along just fine. I will have to max out that monster hunter benchy today and see what the bus speeds report on this particular setup.

"I'm very excite....!"

 

I was kinda worried about running 2x R9 290 on my motherboard as it is 2x 16 2.0 and 1 2.0 4x.
I run a 9800gtx+ for hybrid phsyx in the x4 slot.

I knew there wasnt that much of a difference but was still worried 2.0 slots would hurt 2 R9 290 crossfire alot.

Thanks for the review/info HH. Awesome job.

 

I am wondering if a 3-way crossfire with x16/x16/x8 configuration will make a difference with x16/x8/x8 or x8/x8/x8, also the impact on performance in crossfire caused by bandwidth limitation under different resolutions.

Earlier in a review done by TPU, I saw the impact decreases as resolution increases, but it was a single card test with 7970/680

I am currently using 290x-290-290 3-way crossfire on a P9X79-WS board which can only do x16/x8/x8, and rampage x79 board can do well x16/x16/x8. But again X99 rampage board can only do x16/x8/x8 according to ASUS's site.
So it would be interesting to see if there is a difference, since Hawaii uses PCIE bus instead of crossfire bridges, so normally PCIE bandwidth would play a more important role in crossfire.

 

I wonder whether GPU reading system RAM (as I take it CUDA can do it, and modern AMD cards too) depends on PCIE speed. Such reading goes through PCIE bus. Although system RAM is the slowest component here I guess.

 

when folding A18 work unit my 780 at X8 2.0 use 65% interesting

 

It's of no interest really for single card users like myself.

This only matters if you are building a thermonuclear power plant in your house.

The sale of different PCI-e Gens is one of those not really needed upgrades that we are seem to fall for, gotta get that latest an greatest.

X fire with no bridge will be interesting though no doubt.

Good read as usual though from HH, Thanks.

 

Cool article, cheers boss. I see no need to upgrade yet, not for 5%. You gunna do an AMD one when the new 39X series are out?

 

Nice article, very curious to see how Crossfire will go if you do decide to do a review on it.

 

Would like to see xfire AMD 290x in PCIE 2.0 vs 3.0

 

Awesome article by Hilbert as always! I for one would love to see crossfire results as well.

 

though that is true, x16 / x16 / x8 PCI-Express 3.0 vs 2.0 vs 1.1 could still be interesting, as each system (if you could make it work out that way) would be identically set up, yes?

Personally not "too" interested in it as i doubt i'll ever go tri-SLI

 

It's pretty cool to see 1.1, a 10 year old standard, still perform so well. Pointless, but interesting.

 

From my understanding it would be your HDD and or your SSD that would be considered more of a limitation/bottleneck when regarding throughput. My SSD's in a raid 0 (vertex 4's) top out at 8-900MB/s and my RAM can easily munch through 55-60GB/s..... Pretty funny that the 3970x is supposed to only go to 51GB/s. Just my two cents on how I percieve it work out...

 

well the 4.0ghz Q9550 + x48 that i have sell yearS ago, still beat most I3 and even some I5 and not suffer from having a last gen ATI.

the new owner is really happy with it.

old doesn't mean rubish