2-Way GTX 460 / SLI Ports?

P55 is limited to X8/X8 SLI, unless you add an add-on NF-200 bridge chip for another 16 lanes.

The difference isnt much with GTX460s and the NF200 being a non-native solution is the best idea. For the money, youd rather go X58 for dual X16 SLI.

Heres an article you might be interested in.

But is the performance better with X58? Vastly better or barely?

Take a look at the benchmarks in the article and decide for yourself whether or not the difference matters.

lol 4% slowdown. epic fail. thanks.

8/8 is an insignificant drop, it is about 4% on the most powerful cards, the weaker the card the less significant the 'bottleneck' will be.

An i5 750, P55 mobo and Dual channel RAM kit costs significantly less than an i7, X58 and Tripple Channel RAM Kit, and in terms of gaming performance you lose nothing but save enough to get a better graphics card. So, technically for the same price, an i5 750 will give you better gaming performance.

Of course, it seems now there are P55 boards that allow 16/16, though personally I would not spend the money on it

16/16 down to 8/8 is considered nothing to worry about. Only going from 16/16 to 4/4 is there a real loss.

Best board for money in my opinion (for what its worth) is the Asus P7P55D E Pro.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

With USB/SATA 3 and the ability to SLI or XFire (x8/x8)

The X8/X8 bottleneck does get worse with dual-GPU cards like the HD5970. But youre using the GTX460s anyways, so no biggie.

Though with X58 you do get some extras like 6-cores support and tri-channel RAM like mentioned above, but for gaming performance its mostly irrelevant anyways.

Heres the P7P55D EVO for $15 less than the Pro, good choice if you have no interest in SATA6/USB3.