Tom's Hardware > Forum > Motherboards & Memory > General Motherboard > X58 Does not have True 3 way SLI,Is this true?

X58 Does not have True 3 way SLI,Is this true?

Forum Motherboards & Memory : General Motherboard - X58 Does not have True 3 way SLI,Is this true?

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Zerk   01-26-2009 at 07:30:56 AM

I'm seeing that it looks like the X58 doesn't have rue 3 way SLI?

Like this 1 x PCIe x16, 1 x PCIe x8/x16, 1 x PCIe x8, 1 x PCIe x1, 2 x PCI
2 x 32-bit PCI, support for PCI 2.1

That's the EVGA X58 3 way SLI,Yea it's 3 way but only 2 X16 and 1 X8.

Is that true it does not have True 3 way X16/ 3-X16 .

Am I right?

Thank you!

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aevm   01-26-2009 at 08:56:44 PM
- 1 +

It's true.

 

IIRC the x58 chipset has 36 lanes in total. It's 16x+16x+empty slot, or 16x+8x+8x. It's not physically possible to get 16x+16x+16x or even 16x+16x+8x with a total of only 36.

 

Edit: actually, some boards can also do 16x+16x+4x.


Message edited by aevm on 01-26-2009 at 08:59:27 PM
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Zerk   01-28-2009 at 07:46:22 AM
- 0 +

So the 790i Ultra is the only one with True 3 way SLI?

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scrumhalf   01-28-2009 at 03:50:46 PM
- 0 +

Yes and no. Yes in that it is the only chipset that has 16/16/16 lanes, no in that 2 of the slots are PCIe x16 2.0 and the 3rd is just PCIe x16. Not sure how that translates to actual performance though. Realistically, 2 powerful GPU's on the X58's 2-16 lanes and a weaker GPU as a PPU on the 4 lane will yield great performance. Also, there's always Quad SLI with 2xGTX295's. The benefit from 1 GPU to 2 GPU's > benefit from 2 GPU's to 3 GPU's.

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Zerk   01-28-2009 at 09:07:58 PM
- 0 +

Yea but with the fact that PCI EX16 and X16 2.0 is almost no different,it's Stupid.

They make a brand new CPU and Mobo that can take it but don't use it.

http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 15-11.html

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aevm   01-28-2009 at 09:33:14 PM
- 0 +

Nah, it's not stupid. It's just overkill for now. Current video cards don't need that much bandwidth because they hit size/heat/power limits before hitting the PCI-E 1 bandwidth limit. That will change after a few more die-shrinks.


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Zerk   01-29-2009 at 04:30:57 AM
- 0 +

Yea I saw they hit about Max at 4x or 8x, :) Kinda dumb! Hay Nvidia Wheres the GTX 1000 that actually uses PCI E X16? ahahahah!

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Hupiscratch   01-29-2009 at 04:31:38 PM
- 0 +

Well, possible or not, ASUS is claiming to have a true 3-way SLI with the three at 16x. It´s the P6T6 WS Revolution, a workstation motherboard. If it´s impossible to make true@16 3-way SLI (as ASUS IS naming it) what´s the diference?

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scrumhalf   01-29-2009 at 05:37:16 PM
- 0 +

@Hupiscratch - That's a very good question, I've been researching it for a few days myself. It employs a Nvidia® nForce 200 southbridge in addition to the Intel ICH10R. This allows the nForce 200 to handle 16/16 and the ICH10R to handle the rest. I'm not 100% on the distributions of the lanes, the above is just an example. Asus lists the nForce 200 on the boards description page, which NewEgg left out Asus P6T6 WS. I'm curious to see how effective this is in reality, sounds like it could be a potential driver nightmare. In practice, no one that I have found has been able to get triple SLI working successfully on this board. I'm sure some driver/BIOS tweaks will get it working at some point (I would hope), but as of now I've read of 2 sites unable to run 3xGTX280s on this board in 3xSLI.

Reply to scrumhalf
Hupiscratch   01-29-2009 at 05:50:03 PM
- 0 +

Can someone suggest this test as an article for Tom´s?

Reply to Hupiscratch
Zerk   01-30-2009 at 05:00:24 AM
- 0 +

http://vr-zone.com/articles/more-x [...] l?doc=6144

http://www.asus.com/products.aspx? [...] odelmenu=1


Message edited by Zerk on 01-30-2009 at 05:28:32 AM
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scrumhalf   01-30-2009 at 07:13:38 AM
- 0 +

Great links Zerk, those slides map it out pretty well. Weird that they're designing 4 way x16, I thought 3 way was the limit. Perhaps its only the limit because that's how the drivers are written so far?

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Zerk   01-31-2009 at 04:07:20 AM
- 0 +

Yea I'm not sure?

Sounds cool though.

Next I would like to see 4 way SLI GTX 300's!

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