New Gigabyte Mobo Question

[irishgiant]

Hi,
I am about to purchase a new mobo for a system i am building for myself. I just had a question about his board.

GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard

Under the specifications on newegg, it reads:

"2 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 (one running at x16 model, another one running at x8 model)"

What does this mean? I am planning to start out w/ only 1 video card in here, but was thinking I may upgrade by adding another video card later on and using crossfire. Will this be a problem for me in the future when I'm looking to upgrade?

 

[brendano257]

One 16x slot and 1 8x slot is the standard for P45 boards, it saves production costs and does not have a significant effect on perfomance. The bandwidth of 16x vs 8x simply does not make a difference with today's graphics cards. You will see little to no change from the slot bandwidths.

 

[jsc]

And as a bonus, you get more SATA slots.

 

[DanielCD]

I got the UD3R version (only one PCI-E x16, and only one ethernet connection), but regarding the quality of the motherboard itself -- it's very good.. it feels solid and the manual is very detailed unlike the manuals for some of the other parts of my computer. It gave me no problems on boot. Since I plan on upgrading to 1366 next year, I couldn't justify the extra $20 for something I won't use during the life of this mobo. (although I somehow justified $90 sticks of ram that would be of no use to me once I upgrade..)

 

[TonyJ]

Great mobo at a great price.