GeForce And Radeon On Intel's P67: PCIe Scaling Explored
Intel’s Sandy Bridge-based processors dramatically advance gaming value by increasing performance at lower prices than LGA 1366-based configurations. But is the platform it sits on worthy of that CPU? We test three slot configurations to find out.
Benchmark Results: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call Of Pripyat
The S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat benchmark is the only part of our analysis where the Nvidia card sheds more performance than AMD in the transition from x16 to x4. Count on a 6% to 10% loss for the GeForce GTX 570 and a 6% to 8% loss for the Radeon HD 6950 when using the shorter slot.
Performance differences drop to around 4% at 2560x1600. Either card requires that AA be disabled to achieve smooth game play at this resolution and Ultra details.
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geofelt These tests were done with a single card, on X16/X8/X4 slots. Fine.Reply
But... Who would use anything other than a X16 slot if they had one?
The only real use for a X8 slot would be for sli/crossfire where the addition of a second card should result in an Increase of performance, not a decrease. -
carlhenry it would be nice if you included the GTX 570 in the x8/x8 and x16/x4 test. the 570 flies over the 6950 on the single card config but i was curious how it would do since i think the AMD's scale better than nvidia's. would the 570 still lead because of its advantage? or would AMD even it out because of its scaling (if any) "advantage"Reply -
joytech22 Can you guy's do an article on how performance is affected if you SLI/Xfire using PCI-E 16x slots running @ 4x?Reply
3 way would be preferable because if performance is still adequately faster I'll consider it. -
dalauder Good comments. Can we please see 8x/8x and 16x/4x since that comparison is relevant? I get the impression that somehow SLI/crossfire reduces the performance hit of x4 lanes but I'd like to see numbers.Reply -
Crashman joytech22Can you guy's do an article on how performance is affected if you SLI/Xfire using PCI-E 16x slots running @ 4x?I think you missed a page then!Reply
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pci-express-scaling-p67-chipset-gaming-performance,2887-10.html
The numbers were there all along!
carlhenryit would be nice if you included the GTX 570 in the x8/x8 and x16/x4 test.Well, you should probably read the linked page too then. There's no point in artifically creating a configuration (by taping lanes or whatever) that doesn't exist in real life, is there?
"While Nvidia prevents SLI from functioning on PCH-hosted lanes, x16/x4 configurations are completely possible in CrossFire. But should they be? We tested our motherboard in both x8/x8 and x16/x4 configurations to find out." -
Crashman dalauderYeah...my bad.I didn't mean to call you out to that extent, here's a link to the forum part of this thread:Reply
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/2887-56-geforce-radeon-intel-pcie-scaling-explored
I'm going there to delete your quote from my response. -
cats_Paw Im guessing that 8x lanes are mostly enought. I do belive that it would depend on how fast an actual gpu is, as well as how much ram it has, and how big is its bandwidth.Reply
I means, its logical, but mayb not true :D. Would be nice to see this test on a GTX560 Ti, since it has a lot of headroom for OC, then compare oced version vs non oced. Also this might be interesting in GPUs that have diffrent versions with more and less RAM.
Just my 2 cents :D.