Is the x8 mode in 750i SLI a great performance hit?

[Xpyrofuryx]

Okay, I am planning to go with a 750i SLI motherboard and two ECS nVidia 9600GT 512mb cards in SLI. My question is about bandwidth on it. For 750i SLI it runs two SLI cards in x8 mode, but with the 700 nVidia chipset its also in PCI-E 2.0 and so are the 9600GTs. Since the PCI-E 2.0 is double the bandwidth and the 2.0 bandwidth isnt ever really capped running it in x8 mode would be the same as running it in a 1.1 x16 mode, right?

Would the performance hit i would take by running it in x8 mode be all that great? Is it worth going to a 780i SLI which would run both in x16 2.0 mode?

Or should I just go with a P35 motherboard running a single 3870?

Thanks for your help in advance, I greatly appreciate you guys here at THG

 

[dev1se]

Go SLi and with that board you mentioned.

Ive asked a similar question recently and after having checked a few charts I found that my SLi wouldnt suffer for having x8 x8 .... at most a couple FPS! Which is alot less than the amount of FPS you gain through using SLi.

 

[Xpyrofuryx]

Hmm, Okay yeah the x8 mode doesnt seem like it would cripple performance all that much.

Now my next question is which board should I get?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131232
I like ASUS boards a lot and this one seems for perform good
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130159
This board has 3 PCIE slots and I also like MSI boards

I am torn between the two, what is the advantage of having those 3 pcie slots instead of 2?