PLX PXE chip on motherboard with SLI

[Guest]

The Asus p8z77-v costs $210; it does not have PLX chip.

The Asrock Z77 Extreme6 costs $170, it does have PLX chip.

I understand that the p8z77 probably has features and parts that make it more expensive. However, I plan to SLI in the future (with only two cards). I've heard quad-SLI would benefit from a PLX chip... however, would I still benefit from the chip if it were just dual-SLIing; or should I just get the ASUS motherboard?

 

[jaquith]

Welcome to Tom's Forum!

Unless the 'plan' is 4-WAY SLI there's little point for a Z77 with the PLX chipset. The IB CPU offers x16 or x8/x8 PCIe 3.0 (equal to PCIe 2.0 x16/x16) IF you also use the GTX 600 series or AMD HD 7000 series GPUs. Even x8/x8 PCIe 2.0 will NOT be saturated with a single HD or 2560x1600 monitor. PCIe scaling GTX 680 - http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Ivy_Bridge_PCI-Express_Scaling/

The only testing I've seen where PCIe 2.0 x8/x8/x8/x8 gets bottlenecked is with 3xHD monitors where PCIe 3.0 does help and with the SB-E/LGA 2011/X79. 4-WAY PCIe 2.0 vs PCIe 3.0 - http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=1537816

 

[Guest]

Best answer selected by aaaaax99999.

 

[Guest]

Thanks a bunch, I've been looking for an answer to this question for quite a while!