PCIe Hub and MB selection.

[kenr77]

How important is having a chipset that utilizes a PCIe HUB..???

Thanks, kenr77

 

[g-paw]

If your getting a new mobo, i.e., AMD2 or Intel, they will all have PCIe slots. You want PCIe it's what all the new video cards are.

 

[kenr77]

I was not talking about having PCIe slots on a MB. I was asking about utilizing what nVidia does with it's nForce 590 series of chipsets, which increases the number of "lanes" available.

This was a question I came up with after reading the "Beginners guide to MB selection" on this site. Below is the paragraph my queston came from.

"One Southbridge feature available to all manufacturers but not often used is a PCI Express hub. Instead, designers usually place all desired PCI Express lanes on the Northbridge and limit the number of supported slots. The nForce 590 series differs from those designs by placing a complete PCI Express controller on both north and south bridges and linking those bridges by fast HyperTransport links, so that one Northbridge is able to serve motherboards with as many as 48 or as few as 20 lanes."

THX, kenr77

 

[g-paw]

Sorry, misunderstood your question. I guess the answer in part depends on how much hardware/software can take full advantage of this, is it worth the extra cost, and will you use the hardware/applications that take full advantage of it? Given that according to this most mfg aren't doing this, I'd guess it's not all that important right now but then the questions is, how soon will it be important?

 

[Newf]

How important is having a chipset that utilizes a PCIe HUB..???

Thanks, kenr77

Unless you have to have an SLI system, it is completely irrelevant, except that the chipsets tend to run hotter.