PCI Express And SLI Scaling: How Many Lanes Do You Need?

Features
By published

Are the most elaborate platforms really required to host the fastest GPUs, or can you get away with P55's lane-splitting scheme? As Nvidia’s latest graphics processors push 3D performance to new heights, we examine the interfaces needed to support them.

PCIe Scaling: Alien Vs. Predator

While some games are limited by bandwidth, others are limited by GPU or CPU power. Alien Vs. Predator appears to be limited by one of the latter variables, as its performance barely falls even when the graphics card is crippled by a x4 slot.

The difference between PCIe 2.0 x4 and x16 is only around 1% at this point.

Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.