Comparing Gigabytes and Asus Mobos

[Kenny_C]

so im building a new pc and i was wondering which mobo is better? i will be doing crossfire soon and maybe some slight overclocking.

GIGABYTE GA-P55M-UD4 LGA 1156 Intel P55 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

OR

ASUS P7P55D LE LGA 1156 Intel P55 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

 

[ekoostik]

Ah, the million dollar question right now. Given the limited information out there, which P55 mother board is the best. If you figure that out, let me know.

Ultimately it will differ for each person depending on their needs. I'm not a gamer, but if you're going to crossfire then from what I understand you're better off with 2 PCIe 2.0 x16 slots that run at x8, x8 as opposed to x16, x4. The Asus P&P55D LE has 2 x16 slots but runs at x16, x4. The Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD4 runs at x8, x8.

So, if your only concern is crossfire, then I'd think between those two boards you would want the Gigabyte. The UD4 will also let you run SLI, while the LE will not.

 

[El_Capitan]

Ah, the million dollar question right now. Given the limited information out there, which P55 mother board is the best. If you figure that out, let me know.

Ultimately it will differ for each person depending on their needs. I'm not a gamer, but if you're going to crossfire then from what I understand you're better off with 2 PCIe 2.0 x16 slots that run at x8, x8 as opposed to x16, x4. The Asus P&P55D LE has 2 x16 slots but runs at x16, x4. The Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD4 runs at x8, x8.

So, if your only concern is crossfire, then I'd think between those two boards you would want the Gigabyte. The UD4 will also let you run SLI, while the LE will not.

The information you're giving out is incorrect. The number of x slots correspond to pipelines. So x8 + x8 = 16 pipelines. x16 + x4 = 20 pipelines. Therefore you'll get better performance out of the X16 + x4 by having 20 pipelines as opposed to 16.

 

[ekoostik]

My apologies to Kenny C, certainly didn't mean to mislead anyone. I had a hard time finding any information or actual specs comparing x16/x4 crossfire with x8/x8 CF. The only real numbers I found were from the following article, which is a little dated and compares the setups on P35, P45, X38, and X48 chipsets:
http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=761&p=1

El_Capitan, can you provide some links to some better information or more recent tests? I wouldn't mind learning more about the differences in the setups myself, see if I might have any use for it when I upgrade.

 

[outlw6669]

8x/8x CrossFire is MUCH better than 16x/4x!
If you are going to CrossFire, defiantly get the Gigabyte motherboard.

Beyond all the other arguments against 16x/4x CrossFire, there is one that trumps all here.
On the LGA 1156 platform, the first 16 PCIe lanes connect directly to the CPU while the rest are controlled through the south bridge.
That is going to add TONS of latency to the second card and slow everything way down.

To reiterate, 16x/4x CrossFire is a VERY BAD THING!

 

[El_Capitan]

8x/8x CrossFire is MUCH better than 16x/4x!
If you are going to CrossFire, defiantly get the Gigabyte motherboard.

Beyond all the other arguments against 16x/4x CrossFire, there is one that trumps all here.
On the LGA 1156 platform, the first 16 PCIe lanes connect directly to the CPU while the rest are controlled through the south bridge.
That is going to add TONS of latency to the second card and slow everything way down.

To reiterate, 16x/4x CrossFire is a VERY BAD THING!

My mistake, I agree, 16x/4x CrossFire is worse than 8x/8x due to the bottleneck. I was totally thinking of some other scenario. x58 motherboards can only utilize 36 pipelines, so if you had a 16x/16x/8x, it would downclock one 16x down to 8x to 32 pipelines.