PCI Express And CrossFire Scaling: Is P55 Good Enough?

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The 5970 and the GTX 295, dual gpu's Video cards, function via a internal pcie bridge, allowing each gpu 8 lanes each of the 16 lane slot. They are actually giving you 8x8x sli,crossfire via one card/slot.
 
The 5970 and the GTX 295, dual gpu's Video cards, function via a internal pcie bridge, allowing each gpu 8 lanes each of the 16 lane slot. They are actually giving you 8x8x sli,crossfire via one card/slot.

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Explain to me how an 8x slot would work with that internal crossfire. How about two 8x8x lanes?

You can always tell an intel fanboy by how easily they trip over themselves. Every single time.
 
Cool.
I want a i7 870/P55, but my i7 920/X58 will do just fine I guess. =D
I only run my CPU at stock speeds anyways (too hot while overclocking, and my chip is awful at it anyways).
Whatever happened to the days when we were going Nazi over whether a i7 was either a CO or a DO? =D

I plan to sell my 4870 and go dual 5770's. A lower power platform would fit it nicely.
However, something like a X58 and 2x5970 fit perfectly together. =D
 
[citation][nom]ohreally[/nom]What counts is how your system runs today.

------Yep My Phenom II 940 BE has been beating i7's at HQ for a year now, and I expect it to continue.[/citation]
Your doc called. He has been waiting for you to come in for a check up for a year now.
 
[citation][nom]Crashman[/nom]No it doesn't.[/citation]

Weird, cuz it's not like the manufacture site doesn't say
P7P55 WS SuperComputer provide you the fastest 2-Way SLI graphic performance when you install Geforce graphic cards in the two blue PCIe x16 lots which can work at 16 links.
Click to expand...
http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=n0goz6KAhlPOk1kF

granted it's broken English, but I'm sure Asus at least got their facts right on their PR info page.

Also it's not like newegg doesn't have
Xtreme Design 2 x PCIex16@x16 for 2 or 3 ways SLI support
Click to expand...

plastered across the top of the page. No, I must be dreaming.
 
i7-920 hasn't been the best gaming CPU for a while now.
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3641&p=7

It's beaten by an $80 cheaper i5 in most gaming benchmarks, and clearly beaten by the same priced i7-860. In fact, the 860 has a 4% faster average FPS, which completely negates the 4% loss due to dual x8 shown in this article (ignoring the fact that there is at least 1 P55 mobo out with 2 PCIE x16 @x16 slots).

After that, we're down to the i7-860 using less power, running cooler, and having a much cheaper price for an equivalent mobo.

It would be interesting to see the i5 vs the P II 940 BE, since according to the article jenny linked, the margin by which the BE beats the i5 is very close to the margin the i5 beats the i7-920 by in the anandtech article.
 
Actually the most interesting things shown by Jenny's article is evidence that gaming is GPU not CPU limited, even by a 5970, confirming Tom's findings here
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-5770,2446-16.html

Like in Tom's article, they showed OC up to 4ghz resulting in almost zero FPS gain. Now someone needs to test 2x 5970's and see if it's still GPU limited.

Anandtech's test last year with Quad SLI GTX 295 and an i7-965@ 3.2 ghz was not very conclusive, with some games showing significant gains by adding more GPU's (indicating no CPU bottleneck), with other games not gaining much (indicating either a CPU bottleneck or just crappy SLI scaling).
 
[citation][nom]banthracis[/nom]Weird, cuz it's not like the manufacture site doesn't say http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=n0goz6KAhlPOk1kFgranted it's broken English, but I'm sure Asus at least got their facts right on their PR info page. Also it's not like newegg doesn't have plastered across the top of the page. No, I must be dreaming.[/citation]

No, you're reading manufacturer's sites for incomplete data, which those sites are notorious for. Typically a board that has, for example, 32 lanes for graphics will be listed as "x16/x16/x8" on a manufacturer's site when really its x16/x16 OR x16/x8/x8.

In the case of P55+NF200, you're getting sixteen total lanes of bandwidth to several x16 slots via a PCIe hub. So when I said it doesn't have two x16 slots, I was refering to the entire pathway: It has two x16 slots sharing one sixteen-lane pathway to the CPU.
 
[citation][nom]zipzoomflyhigh[/nom]Amazing the 790GX and FX have been out forever, yet TH never tested the difference between those. X58 and P55 much newer, have been tested extensively for graphical differences. WHY?Because everyone knows TH is a bunch of Intel fanboys.[/citation]
Or maybe it's because Intel is currently king for mindshare in high-end enthusiast computing? When AMD was on top it seemed like that's what they used for most of their benchmarks. But I do concede your point that using an AMD platform to conduct such a test as this would be better as you'd even be able to use the same proc but you gotta cater to your market.
 
Good stuff. I don't quite see where the surprise comes in though. These numbers look pretty much like what was found when TH (was it you Crashman?) did the P45/X48 comparison.
So we have faster GPUs now... but the performance difference of X8 and X16 remain the same. What does that actually mean? How could that be?
Here's another question for you Crashman.... do we see the same difference when we use slower GPUs?
 
[citation][nom]liquidsnake718[/nom]Youve never heard of people upgrading their CPU on a motherboard? What? Do you know how many readers and PC builders have done just that and you are assuming something like that? Since socket A?!? Pls. rephrase your statement as it doesnt make any sense even for an opinion it is so base...[/citation]
I don't know why it wouldn't make any sense. You know what socket A is, right? You know - the socket amd used for their durons and until the athlon 64 .... That's the last time any of my aquaintances have upgraded a cpu without upgrading the rest. Sure I know there are people who upgrade, but personally I don't know any. And I know a lot of computer literate people who would consider it. But mostly an upgrade isn't worth it, or isn't possible. The last time I considered an upgrade was when the first am2 phenom x3 arrived, and I wanted to upgrade a biostar board, but the company didn't want to make a supporting bios. So the upgrade was never done. And apart from that, the last time I remember anyone upgrading their cpu was a guy upgrading from a slow athlon to a faster athlon mp. It just doesn't happen as often as people would like to think. The posibility is there, but it just isn't employed as the benefits from going from an q6600 to a q9450 just isn't worth it, nor is an upgrade from a celeron 2.8 to a pentium d or an upgrade from an athlon 64 4000 to a 5500.

I really don't know what there is not to understand in this. Back with socket 5 and 7 people might've been inclined to upgrade as the jump from a 486sx to a 486dx with twice the megaherz is huge - and hardware actually cost something. But in this millenia forget it. Buy a new motherboard to go with your new cpu.
 
Nice comparison and interesting results. Certainly justifies making one consider chipsets of a MOBO prior to purchase depending on application of use.

Looking only at averages, the chart above makes it appear that adding a third card boosts P55 performance by nearly 8%. Yet the fact that it hurts performance in some games and offers no benefit in a few others means that we’d never suggest using the P55 PCH to host a third graphics card in CrossFire or SLI. Moreover, the X58 gains 25% by adding a third card and has no performance issues
Click to expand...

I believe this should say 12% instead of 8% and 40% instead of 25%.
 
[citation][nom]neiroatopelcc[/nom].... That's the last time any of my aquaintances have upgraded a cpu without upgrading the rest. ... But in this millenia forget it. Buy a new motherboard to go with your new cpu.[/citation]

Absolutely agreed. Technologies and underlying supporting technologies are changing so fast that by the time you actually need to upgrade a major component, the rest of your computer should also need an upgrade as well 95% of the time. The only time this isn't the case is when you have hardware failure some few months after a full upgrade and it isn't cost effective to upgrade all components once again.

Along with that, quality of products have gradually been improving due to criticism for each component requiring a higher demand for better quality, so chances of you running into upgrading a single component due to fault grows increasingly slimmer.
 
Upgrading CPU's on the same motherboard don't make a lick of sense unless you're buying into the platform with a crappy below-average at the time CPU. Because a) by the time, the new chips come out, the MB will be so old that the manufacturer will NOT be issuing new BIOS updates to support them (my old 775 ASUS MB would not support the newest Core 2 Duo's even though they fit) or b) the increase in performance of the newer chip over your old one is not big enough of a difference for you to upgrade.

What do I do when my entire system gets old? I hand down the entire machine to family and friends who don't need cutting edge gaming and I buy an entirely new platform. You should NOT be basing your upgrade decisions on a $140 part (the MB). That will force you to make shitty compromised decisions by choosing crummy vid cards upgrades and CPU's.
 
[citation][nom]pandemonium_ctp[/nom]Nice comparison and interesting results. Certainly justifies making one consider chipsets of a MOBO prior to purchase depending on application of use.I believe this should say 12% instead of 8% and 40% instead of 25%.[/citation]

Divide the bigger number by the smaller number it's being compared to, instead of subtracting. The 100% "reference point" is only useful when comparing the "reference point" configuration.
 
[citation][nom]Crashman[/nom]It was mentioned in passing, which is appropriate because this is an examination of PCIe scaling issues. There's no other fair way to do it. The closest thing to "fair" with triple-channel would be to set the X58 up with 3MB and the P55 with 4MB, but then you'd be using different parts on the different platforms which still isn't fair. Fortunately, Tom's has determined in past articles that triple-channel doesn't help games by more than 1%.[/citation]
I think that its more usefull to test the X58 with 6GB and triplechannel mode; simply because that's what most of us buy going for the X58 platform. Is this fair ? Maybe not. Is this common practice ? Absolutely.

3GB most of us don't go for, arguing it isn't enough.
4GB is also not done: you have three channels, six ports; you must be crazybuying a dualchannel memorykit is the reasoning. I can tell, i promote the dualchannel kit for the X58 to anyone who is on a tight budget.

So in reallife the default is 4GB/s1156 and 6GB/s1366. And so is my believe the test should represent common practice as much as possible,
I couldn't care less if the reviewe chooses 8GB for the s1156, knowing, what you also mention; that more memory makes hardly any difference. Sufficient memory is more then enough and rite now 4GB is just that; more then enough.

 
[citation][nom]Madrox4ever[/nom]I think that its more usefull to test the X58 with 6GB and triplechannel mode; simply because that's what most of us buy going for the X58 platform. Is this fair ? Maybe not. Is this common practice ? Absolutely.3GB most of us don't go for, arguing it isn't enough.4GB is also not done: you have three channels, six ports; you must be crazybuying a dualchannel memorykit is the reasoning. I can tell, i promote the dualchannel kit for the X58 to anyone who is on a tight budget. So in reallife the default is 4GB/s1156 and 6GB/s1366. And so is my believe the test should represent common practice as much as possible,I couldn't care less if the reviewe chooses 8GB for the s1156, knowing, what you also mention; that more memory makes hardly any difference. Sufficient memory is more then enough and rite now 4GB is just that; more then enough.[/citation]

No matter, the article was about the P55's PCIe issue, not its memory issue. You'd need two articles to explore both, and get this: We've already done the P55 vs X58 general performance evaluation long ago.
 
You all guys sure have a problem... Because of low sales (on that specific product) Newegg ceased selling the almighty MSI Eclipse Plus (i couldn't get my hands in one... i was saving to get it)... everyone who has at least a little undestanding about PCI Express technology knows the issues in multi-GPU that PCIE x16 paired with lower PICE lanes cause... that GREAT motherboard was the DAMN ONLY ONE to sport 3... THREE!!! all THREE PCIEx16 slots so you could go 3-way SLI or CrossfireX on it... now you have confused and ignorant people thinking crappy EVGA (the so-stupidly-called) "3-way SLI 'Classified', or the other piece of sh... 4-way sli"... as if those were really enthusiast products that you could use it the proper way and juice them, just like ASUS, MSI and Gigabyte... hope the egg re-launches that GREAT mobo. EVGA is just mainstream crap with a great marketing... you should seek REAL performance and be informed so you don't end buying SUPPOSEDLY-good-products
 
[citation][nom]grossemesser[/nom]You all guys sure have a problem... Because of low sales (on that specific product) Newegg ceased selling the almighty MSI Eclipse Plus (i couldn't get my hands in one... i was saving to get it)... everyone who has at least a little undestanding about PCI Express technology knows the issues in multi-GPU that PCIE x16 paired with lower PICE lanes cause... that GREAT motherboard was the DAMN ONLY ONE to sport 3... THREE!!! all THREE PCIEx16 slots so you could go 3-way SLI or CrossfireX on it... now you have confused and ignorant people thinking crappy EVGA (the so-stupidly-called) "3-way SLI 'Classified', or the other piece of sh... 4-way sli"... as if those were really enthusiast products that you could use it the proper way and juice them, just like ASUS, MSI and Gigabyte... hope the egg re-launches that GREAT mobo. EVGA is just mainstream crap with a great marketing... you should seek REAL performance and be informed so you don't end buying SUPPOSEDLY-good-products[/citation]

There's an article coming soon to prove your ignorance.
 
[citation][nom]Crashman[/nom]Thanks, it was meant in the nicest way (ignorance being the lack of knowledge, as opposed to stupidity which is the refusal of knowledge).Anyway, here's the link:http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] ,2537.html[/citation]

Whilst no expert, I am capable of understanding most sentences without linguistic support from you! Stick to hardware, that's where I might care to be helped. Although in this particular case I've picked x58 and avoided the bottleneck altogether :)
 
[citation][nom]neiroatopelcc[/nom]Whilst no expert, I am capable of understanding most sentences without linguistic support from you![/citation]

Ah, but you're not the only person reading these comments, and many people are only familiar with the insolent use of that word!
 
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