- Aug 8, 2014
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Hello all, having suckled from the teet of knowledge that is Tom's for many years I finally decided to dive in and start contributing and will help where I can. As I guess is the case with most I will start by posing my own question.
I want to know whether I was right to purchase the classified version of EVGAs Z97 board based on my intentions to use a PCIe SSD without limiting my SLI and bandwidth options.
To answer this I will (try to) boil things down to their constituent questions.
I tried my best to find an ASUS board but unless I am mistaken, the best I could have done with PCIe lanes would have been one x16 or two x8 and an additional slot running at x4 maximum (shared with m.2)
My quandry stems from the fact that I committed my self to an OCZ revo350 which requires a PCIe 2.0 slot with 8 lanes. I need to understand if the negotiation which takes place between the board and the card will result in a PCIe 3.0 x4 slot operating as a PCIe 2.0 slot with x8 mode or x4 mode?
If the former is true then I guess that the Sabertooth Mark 1 would be a good solution as I could have 1 graphics card at x16 or 2 cards at x8 / x8 and in both cases I could use the revodrive at full speed with no impact on GPU bandwidth in the slot which shares its lanes with M.2 as this slot would convert to an 8 lane Gen 2 slot.
I am conscious however that if the PCIe 3.0 slot running at x4 auto negotiates to PCIe 2.0 x4 then I will be halving my SSD bandwidth and will therefore require putting it in a x16 slot to get the full potential. This scenario would mean that my single graphics solution would be running at x8 mode and any optimal SLI solutions would be out the window. This is not something I am willing to accept.
My justification for buying the EVGA Z97 Classified was based on the fact that its PLX chip will allow me to have x16 / x16 with a single GPU and my SSD or x8 / x8 / x8 with dual GPU in SLI and my SSD. The issue I have here is essentially 3 fold:
1.) If the x4 slot can become a 2nd Gen x8 slot then I have wasted £150 by stepping up to the EVGA Classified with its PLX chip based on me using a single graphics card.
2.) With 2 Graphics cards and an SSD in the Classified board my Graphics cards will be running at x8 / x8 which I could acheive on almost any Z97 board, if I could move my SSD and take advantage of the auto negotiate scenario I could bask in the glory of x16 / x16 on the classified board which to me would justify the price hike.
3. will the PLX latency outweigh and negate any of the above discussion and simply slow me down else where?
Finally if I am wrong in any of my basic assumptions and if someone can suggest how I would get x16 x16 plus PCIe SSD at full speed or x8 / x8 and PCIe SSD at full speed then I am all ears!
I realize this post is long but I wanted to be explicit and ensure the exact detail of my situation was clear from the outset as I have been pondering this for a long while.
I understand that some people will be enclined to challenge why somoeone would want or worry about running PCIe gen 3 graphics cards with less lanes due to bandwidth being ample or why I would need such a high end PCIe SSD. As I only build every 3 or 4 years I decided to treat myself this time hence have probably gone a bit OTT but my questions here are on technicalities and not on real world economising or common sense but I would gladly have this thrown into the mix assuming my initial questions are covered off!
Thanks all in advance for your responses.
I want to know whether I was right to purchase the classified version of EVGAs Z97 board based on my intentions to use a PCIe SSD without limiting my SLI and bandwidth options.
To answer this I will (try to) boil things down to their constituent questions.
I tried my best to find an ASUS board but unless I am mistaken, the best I could have done with PCIe lanes would have been one x16 or two x8 and an additional slot running at x4 maximum (shared with m.2)
My quandry stems from the fact that I committed my self to an OCZ revo350 which requires a PCIe 2.0 slot with 8 lanes. I need to understand if the negotiation which takes place between the board and the card will result in a PCIe 3.0 x4 slot operating as a PCIe 2.0 slot with x8 mode or x4 mode?
If the former is true then I guess that the Sabertooth Mark 1 would be a good solution as I could have 1 graphics card at x16 or 2 cards at x8 / x8 and in both cases I could use the revodrive at full speed with no impact on GPU bandwidth in the slot which shares its lanes with M.2 as this slot would convert to an 8 lane Gen 2 slot.
I am conscious however that if the PCIe 3.0 slot running at x4 auto negotiates to PCIe 2.0 x4 then I will be halving my SSD bandwidth and will therefore require putting it in a x16 slot to get the full potential. This scenario would mean that my single graphics solution would be running at x8 mode and any optimal SLI solutions would be out the window. This is not something I am willing to accept.
My justification for buying the EVGA Z97 Classified was based on the fact that its PLX chip will allow me to have x16 / x16 with a single GPU and my SSD or x8 / x8 / x8 with dual GPU in SLI and my SSD. The issue I have here is essentially 3 fold:
1.) If the x4 slot can become a 2nd Gen x8 slot then I have wasted £150 by stepping up to the EVGA Classified with its PLX chip based on me using a single graphics card.
2.) With 2 Graphics cards and an SSD in the Classified board my Graphics cards will be running at x8 / x8 which I could acheive on almost any Z97 board, if I could move my SSD and take advantage of the auto negotiate scenario I could bask in the glory of x16 / x16 on the classified board which to me would justify the price hike.
3. will the PLX latency outweigh and negate any of the above discussion and simply slow me down else where?
Finally if I am wrong in any of my basic assumptions and if someone can suggest how I would get x16 x16 plus PCIe SSD at full speed or x8 / x8 and PCIe SSD at full speed then I am all ears!
I realize this post is long but I wanted to be explicit and ensure the exact detail of my situation was clear from the outset as I have been pondering this for a long while.
I understand that some people will be enclined to challenge why somoeone would want or worry about running PCIe gen 3 graphics cards with less lanes due to bandwidth being ample or why I would need such a high end PCIe SSD. As I only build every 3 or 4 years I decided to treat myself this time hence have probably gone a bit OTT but my questions here are on technicalities and not on real world economising or common sense but I would gladly have this thrown into the mix assuming my initial questions are covered off!
Thanks all in advance for your responses.
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