x99 worth the extra pcie lanes?

[timmrhodes]

ok i know if i went with the x99 the build would cost about 500 more
would gaming benifit at all from the extra pcie lanes

i will be running 2 way sli and dont know if running 16X16 would make much diffrence

thanks

 

[Dunlop0078]

Not 500 dollars worth of performance in my opinion. Sli benchmarks on z97 and x99 are very close in most games, maybe a 5% difference if i had to guess. I'll try to find some benchmarks for you.

 

[IInuyasha74]

I would say go for an X99 platform, but a cheaper one. DDR4 is really coming down in price, and the lowest end X99 CPU isn't too much higher than the i7-4790k. I think that one only has 28-PCIE lanes, but really the bigger improvement to the overall system will come from the better CPU and RAM. PCI-E lanes will give a little boost, but probably less significant than the others.

 

[timmrhodes]

think i read some where that the lower end chip would not run a 16X16 on sli will try and find that read

 

[endeavour37a]

There is no real difference between PCIe 3.0 x16/x8, you start to see a performance hit at x4 in 3-way XFire (can't SLI with only 4 lanes) but even that is small. So the X99 platform has little to offer gaming over the Z97.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GTX_980_PCI-Express_Scaling/21.html

 

[IInuyasha74]

That is not correct. The PCI-E lane connection is controlled entirely by the CPU and motherboard, not the GPU.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_X99

The chipset allows for things to be connected with 1x, 2x, 4x, 8x, and 16x PCI-E lanes each. The worst X99 CPU will give one GPU x16, with the second GPU x8. All AMD and Nvidia GPUs capable of multi-GPU setups will allow this.

Like some others have pointed out, the PCI-E lanes will give next to no real benefit currently, might in future, hard to say, but the CPU and RAM benefits are an upgrade enough.

 

[endeavour37a]

Some interesting reading on new stuff coming very shortly. For a gaming rig the i5-4690k is the best buy and will last a good while for future games, anything over this is not cost effective. DDR4 is cool but does not buy much over DDR3 2400, again not cost effective. The best way to spend money for gaming performance is in the graphic card itself. Once you reach a certain platform level to let your GPU work as it should spending more on it does not add much performance, at that point it is all about graphics card power.

The new 980Ti and AMD Fiji are going to be the new top dogs on single GPU cards, they will be the best thing to spend money on to gain FPS in gaming. I would get a i7-4790k/Z97/DDR3 platform and move the cash I saved to buy one of these cards, figure around $800 from the way it sounds now for either. Everyone in the world is showing off their new shinny 980Ti cards right now, but no prices yet, they should be on the shelf next month. The new AMD line up is going to be announced/released on June 16th at the E3 expo, the Fiji is the only new core with 4GB of HBM, all the rest are re-brands, the Hawaii has been bumped up to 8GB GDDR5 and renamed Granada. Inno3D, ASUS and EVGA have even made water/air cooler 980Ti cards.

The new Slylake CPUs look pretty good and should be out soon, LGA 1151 and 2017-a (replaces the 2011-v3) sockets, new chipset is Z170
http://us.wow.com/wiki/Skylake_%28microarchitecture%29
http://wccftech.com/intel-skylake-s-platform-specifications-detailed-z170-100series-chipset-replace-z97-2h-2015/
http://wccftech.com/asrock-unveils-z170-motherboards-shows-z170-extreme-7-z170-fatal1ty-gaming-k6/
http://wccftech.com/fiji-xt-4gb-amd-dual-8gb-hbm-msrp-849/
http://wccftech.com/nvidia-gtx-980-ti-gm200-310-maxwell-launch/
http://www.overclockers.com/intel-skylake-2015-brings-ddr4-pcie-40/


Very good place for new breaking video card info
http://videocardz.com/

 

[timmrhodes]

Will be going with at least 980 ti or titan x in sli
Not sure yes still doing reading and reviews on surround on 4 k and 120 hz
Might not use 3 monitors