Hi All,
Thanks in advance for any help.
Here's the situation. I'm currently building a system. The primary function I have in mind for it is gaming. My approach is the same now as it has always been when building systems for myself or others, I try to achieve, balanced with as low or reasonable a price as possible, the performance necessary for not only a reasonable lifetime at the desired task, but with elements that allow for key upgrades that extend the life of the system (in its performance at that task).
At my moderate level of gaming, this means that I'm trying to build a system that will play current 'generation' games (say DX10 for a reference point) at high performance levels, next generation games (say early DX11) at reasonable performance levels, and is open to upgrades that will enable the following generation of games (say later DX11, 4-6 years from now) to be played at reasonable (playable) performance levels. This means, for example, getting a cheap 640GB Caviar black now and upgrading to a SSD in a year or two when the technology matures and comes down in price (espec. since the effect on gaming of HD access speeds it seems is far less pronounced than the effect on multitasking and workflow application use). Closer to the purpose, it means that I'll probably get a single HD5870 or GTX480 (phenomenal recent review), stick that in one 16xPCIe2.0 lane (I'm gonna be running an X58 north bridge, but I haven't picked a mobo yet), and plan in a year or two to get another of the same and run them in CF/SLI for a performance boost at what I hope will be a lower price at the time.
Now you can probably see where this is going, the X58 north bridge only has a controller for 36x PCIe2.0 lanes available, usually split 16x/16x/1x or 16x/8x/8x with the remainder split to other controllers, e.g. a Marvell for SATA3. While I only plan to use one 16 lane PCIe2.0 connection for a GPU now, I plan as mentioned to use another 16x connection to run another one in CF/SLI in a year or two as prices for the 5870 or 480 drop. For upgradeability however I'd like to get a SATA3 connection in the next few years to accomodate faster SSDs that come out. Unfortunately as shown in Anand's recent review on 6Gbps SATA, the only controllers on the market are made by Marvell, and from that data don't seem to perform as well as even the native Intel 3Gbps controller, which begs the question why even get the SATA3 connection at this time.
It seems to me that the logical choice is to get a board without a SATA3 controller, and as better controllers come out next year get one that can take a PCIe2.0 slot and add it in myself (like current RocketRaid cards). This means, however, that I'll need lanes for it.
So, my question is (sorry about the long exposition), where should I get the necessary PCIe2.0 lanes? If future controllers require only 1 PCIe2.0 lane, then there's no problem, but if more are required I need to get a mobo with additional PCIe2.0 controllers in addition to the ones coming off the north bridge. Can any such PCIe2.0 lanes be trusted in terms of performance? Are there specific manufacturers I can go with? Am I misguided in my understanding that the first 36 PCIe 2.0 lanes are controlled by the Intel X58 north bridge, not a 3rd party controller?
Thanks for any advice on how to proceed. The bottom line is I'm looking for 2 16x PCIe2.0 connections as well as sufficient additional PCIe 2.0 lanes to place a card that will give me SATA3 at reasonable performance (and ideally something to get me a USB3.0 connection as well)
(tl;dr [abbreviated] version: want an X58 mobo with 2 16xPCIe2.0 GPUs in SLI/CF, but also want to pick up a SATA3 controller in the next couple years when they get better, current Marvell controller is lacking as per anand review. Where should I get the PCIe lanes? Can third party PCIe2.0 controllers perform? Which ones can I rely on to later use for a solid SATA 6Gbps connection?)
All the best,
Darunium
Thanks in advance for any help.
Here's the situation. I'm currently building a system. The primary function I have in mind for it is gaming. My approach is the same now as it has always been when building systems for myself or others, I try to achieve, balanced with as low or reasonable a price as possible, the performance necessary for not only a reasonable lifetime at the desired task, but with elements that allow for key upgrades that extend the life of the system (in its performance at that task).
At my moderate level of gaming, this means that I'm trying to build a system that will play current 'generation' games (say DX10 for a reference point) at high performance levels, next generation games (say early DX11) at reasonable performance levels, and is open to upgrades that will enable the following generation of games (say later DX11, 4-6 years from now) to be played at reasonable (playable) performance levels. This means, for example, getting a cheap 640GB Caviar black now and upgrading to a SSD in a year or two when the technology matures and comes down in price (espec. since the effect on gaming of HD access speeds it seems is far less pronounced than the effect on multitasking and workflow application use). Closer to the purpose, it means that I'll probably get a single HD5870 or GTX480 (phenomenal recent review), stick that in one 16xPCIe2.0 lane (I'm gonna be running an X58 north bridge, but I haven't picked a mobo yet), and plan in a year or two to get another of the same and run them in CF/SLI for a performance boost at what I hope will be a lower price at the time.
Now you can probably see where this is going, the X58 north bridge only has a controller for 36x PCIe2.0 lanes available, usually split 16x/16x/1x or 16x/8x/8x with the remainder split to other controllers, e.g. a Marvell for SATA3. While I only plan to use one 16 lane PCIe2.0 connection for a GPU now, I plan as mentioned to use another 16x connection to run another one in CF/SLI in a year or two as prices for the 5870 or 480 drop. For upgradeability however I'd like to get a SATA3 connection in the next few years to accomodate faster SSDs that come out. Unfortunately as shown in Anand's recent review on 6Gbps SATA, the only controllers on the market are made by Marvell, and from that data don't seem to perform as well as even the native Intel 3Gbps controller, which begs the question why even get the SATA3 connection at this time.
It seems to me that the logical choice is to get a board without a SATA3 controller, and as better controllers come out next year get one that can take a PCIe2.0 slot and add it in myself (like current RocketRaid cards). This means, however, that I'll need lanes for it.
So, my question is (sorry about the long exposition), where should I get the necessary PCIe2.0 lanes? If future controllers require only 1 PCIe2.0 lane, then there's no problem, but if more are required I need to get a mobo with additional PCIe2.0 controllers in addition to the ones coming off the north bridge. Can any such PCIe2.0 lanes be trusted in terms of performance? Are there specific manufacturers I can go with? Am I misguided in my understanding that the first 36 PCIe 2.0 lanes are controlled by the Intel X58 north bridge, not a 3rd party controller?
Thanks for any advice on how to proceed. The bottom line is I'm looking for 2 16x PCIe2.0 connections as well as sufficient additional PCIe 2.0 lanes to place a card that will give me SATA3 at reasonable performance (and ideally something to get me a USB3.0 connection as well)
(tl;dr [abbreviated] version: want an X58 mobo with 2 16xPCIe2.0 GPUs in SLI/CF, but also want to pick up a SATA3 controller in the next couple years when they get better, current Marvell controller is lacking as per anand review. Where should I get the PCIe lanes? Can third party PCIe2.0 controllers perform? Which ones can I rely on to later use for a solid SATA 6Gbps connection?)
All the best,
Darunium
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