PCIE slots advice and comments on P5K Premium

[vibe]

So there I was, cash in hand (well mouse over the “add to cart” option) all ready to purchase a new Asus P5K Premium wifi-ap mobo, when I thought “hang on a sec, Custom PC did an article on mobos a few months back, I’ll just check if they covered this one” as it turned out, they did.

And I’m pleased to say they thought it was an amazing bit of kit, one thing stuck off the page however, they listed it as just 1 16xPCI-E slot, when it’s listed as 2 in the online stores. Custom PC went on to explain how the second slot only has 4 pipes and hence don’t recommend splashing out on a second GPU.

Now I’m a massive fan of multi screen setups. I want a 3 screen build with the main screen (for gaming windows) off a top of the range GPU and 2 support screens off of a secondary GPU for use when multi-tasking or “just looking flash” as my GF puts it.

So here’s my questions,

1) If I want a top end mobo that has 2x 16pcies do I need to look at the Maximus Extreme and costly DDR3 RAM or does the Maximus Formula have the 2 slots at 16 pipes each? And ….

2) Does the number of lanes going to my 2nd card really matter if I’m not looking at doing much in the way of graphics work on the secondary monitors, most they will ever do is from time to time play a DVD.

Thanks in advance for any help provided.

Ian

P.S – Custom PC is well worth a read for anyone starting out building rigs. Oh and if the read this please feel free to send me stuff 

 

[raven_87]

2) You''ve pretty much answered your own question;

Yes, the second slot is PCI-E 4x; You can just go with a single PCI-e slot and perhaps an add in PCI. - just a thought. And no, if you want 2 16x slots your not going to have to look for your Maximus and DDR3.

 

[chookman]

a secondary gpu will work fine in the second slot... you wont see any performance issues as what you are doing with this second slot is not intensive enough to show up.

Also would advise against P5K-Premium... its has its fair share of issues that are yet to be sorted out. P5K-e Wi/Fi has almost all the features of the Premium and none of its problems ... hay and its cheaper

 

[vibe]

Thanks for the answeres folks, great help.

Thaks for the advice Chookman, I haven't seen anything but praise for the P5K-Premium yet but I'll go dig around some more in the forums and check out the P5K-e