Asus P5WD2 Premium and ATi Crossfire

[Belisarius]

Hello all

I was just wondering if anyone has attempted to use the dual Crossfire setup on the Asus P5WD2 Premium (i955X) board yet?
I have been assured by Asus support staff that it can indeed utilize x8/x8 configuration, twice in fact I have sent emails to receive the following answers:

Q: Also it mentions support for ATi Crossfire under the BIOS description on your download page. Is this
x8 PCI-Express for both x16 slots on the board using ATi compatible cards?
A: "with ATI crossfire ,the 2 video card will run at PCI-e 8x mode ."

Q: Hello ZYC

This is an email from you a while ago below, stating that my Asus P5WD2
Premium (i955X) board can run full x8 crossfire mode (that is two ATi
crossfire compatible cards in full crossfire mode) in both x16 slots
provided on the motherboard. Is this correct? As I would like to 100%
know before purchasing two ATi cards (else I will be wasting money if it
does not work at full x8 mode).
On your website it states that the second x16 slot is a universal slot
and x4 only maximum. Also it is a known fact that this is the case
generally for all 955X boards, that they are only electrically wired for
x4 PCI Express use only. (not unless Asus broke with Intel standards for
this particular motherboard and electrically wired it a x8 slot?)
Can you 100% guarantee it is the case that this board can use full x8
crossfire mode when two ATi crossfire compatible cards are used in each
slot. As I have upgraded my BIOS to the latest 0606 version, and
certainly there is no option in BIOS to make the second slot a x8 slot
for crossfire, only x2, x4 or an "auto" setting. If you could help me
with this question, it would be greatly appreciated.
Also what other implications does this have for other devices I might
have plugged into other PCI Express slots on the board, if indeed the
motherboard has the capability to run full dual x8 crossfire mode? Does
it interfere with the Gigabit LAN PCI Express onboard etc?

Thankyou for your time


A: "Sir ,the motherboard provide 20 PCI-E lanes ,

if a Video card is installed the 1 pci-e 16x slot ,

it will take 16 lanes of pci-e ,

another pci-e 16x slot have 4 lanes available .

when the board is set the Crossfire mode ,

the 2 slots will take 8 pci-e lanes each , that is correct ,

a bit same like SLI mode on NF4 chipset board ."

So as you can see they are adament that it will work full crossfire mode, but I aint game enough to test it . Anyone done this yet?

cheers

 

[GerryPers]

I've got the same board as you.

But as far as I know this board only supports 4x from the second PCI-Express slot (my sources ar the manual and the website).

There is however another board with a similar name: P5WD2-E Premium.

This board supports 2x8 mode according to the website.

It's very strange that the Asus representative didn't point that out. (If I'm correct.)

 

[Belisarius]

GerryPers

Yeah I know about the P5WD2-E (i975X) board, I made it quite clear to this guy that it was the 955X board (the P5WD2 Premium). I had sent a number of emails to him with regard to it, I only took an exerpt from my full email. He reckons the 955X variant does x8/x8 crossfire. I just wanted to know if anyone had tried it.