Any Good Reviews/Info On Running x16/x8 Xfire?

[OCGuy]

I'm going to be building a Xfire i7 950 rig, and just noticed my motherboard will only run it in x16/x8.


EVGA 131-GT-E767-TR LGA 1366 Intel X58 SLI3 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX


I know I have read that there is almost zero performance drop in doing this over x16/x16, but has anyone ever tested it in real world situations?

 

[Grooveriding]

With 480 SLI I lost on average 2-3fps in gaming going from x16/x16 to x16/x8.

Tri-SLI at x16/x8/x8 is still showing decent gains over x16/x8 dual.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_5870_PCI-Express_Scaling/7.html

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/08/16/sli_cfx_pcie_bandwidth_perf_x16x16_vs_x16x8/1

 

[OCGuy]

Thank you Grooveriding, that is exactly what I was looking for! The google failed me for some reason.

Looks like I do not have much to worry about @ 1080p.

 

[MentalIlness]

Search Techpowerup.

I know for a fact that they have a review with results to your exact question.

EDIT: I now see that Groove posted the link

 

[biostud]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-crossfire-nvidia-sli-multi-gpu,2678-5.html

 

[WelshBloke]

Is this 'cos you couldn't find a GTX580 in stock anywhere?

Seriously though there shouldn't be any performance hit.


You should give us a write up about the AMD drivers after. :whiste:

 

[OCGuy]

Is this 'cos you couldn't find a GTX580 in stock anywhere?

Seriously though there shouldn't be any performance hit.


You should give us a write up about the AMD drivers after. :whiste:

Haha

No I was looking at the 580 very closely, but I just couldn't beat the performance out of adding a 2nd $179 5850.

My previous mutli-gpu setup (2x280s) did not sour me on SLI/Xfire, I am hoping this does not either.

 

[Elfear]

Hardocp's review is the one that made me decide it was worth moving one video card to the last PCI-E slot for better cooling even though it would only run at x8 speed. Negligible gains going from x16/x8 to x16/x16. Looks like the only time the PCI-E bandwidth made a difference was at Eyefinity resolutions going from x16/x16 to x8/x8 and even then it was ~7%.

 

[WelshBloke]

Haha

No I was looking at the 580 very closely, but I just couldn't beat the performance out of adding a 2nd $179 5850.

My previous mutli-gpu setup (2x280s) did not sour me on SLI/Xfire, I am hoping this does not either.

Yeah the 58x0 series does seem to be good value at the moment. Especially as we wont get much more from AMD/NV until the next node from TSMC which will probably be some time in 2012.