Asus P8Z77-V PREMIUM VS Gigabyte Intel Z77 Dual Thunderbolt

[luctantem]

I have a doubt regarding motherboard selection for my 1st Hackintosh Build

My requirement : 2.5K RAW Video editing and color Correction (Davinci Resolve)

Ram : 16 gb now ( will add another 16gb if required , suggest)

Graphics : Nvidia GTX 670 ( 4gb now ) ( will add another 4gb if required , suggest)


Now my question:

Gigabyte Intel Z77 Dual Thunderbolt ATX Motherboard (GA-Z77X-UP4-TH)
Price: $248

VS

Gigabyte Intel Z77 Dual Thunderbolt ATX Motherboard with BT4.0/Wi-Fi (GA-Z77X-UP5-TH) Price : $449

Vs

Asus P8Z77-V PREMIUM Price: $387


My doubt:

I read gigabyte limited to just 16 PCIe lanes. The ASUS board gets around this with a chip set that does some switching. This allows you to get x16 on 2 PCIe slots.

On the Gigabyte if I install the 2 GPUs the PCIe busses drop to x8.

So Can someone explain this problem in more detail , I'm quite new to hardware and also give plus/minus of 3 boards , so that I can select any one.

Thank you

 

[Ketchup]

Why do you need two threads for the same question?

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2331292

 

[luctantem]

Why do you need two threads for the same question?

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2331292

I didn't understand things there and I'm still in my doubts and I'm in a stage to purchase one now...So I just cant decide of above 3 mobo's, I'm, stuck which to buy for my hackintosh build for 2.5k RAW video editing/ color correction So I thought to make myself clear. Sorry if that's a mistake.

 

[Ketchup]

I gotcha, what about the last comment by cmdrdredd:

if your motherboard is giving you PCIe 3.0 @ 8x/8x when you run SLI or Crossfire you don't need to worry about the bandwidth available. Not even a GTX Titan completely saturates the bus at these speeds.

And I totally agree. In the case of SLI, either board will be fine. Let us know what you don't understand.

 

[luctantem]

I gotcha, what about the last comment by cmdrdredd:



And I totally agree. In the case of SLI, either board will be fine. Let us know what you don't understand.

have 3 questions...

1 So Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UP4 TH supports PCIe 3.0 ? and I can install two 4gb graphics cards and take complete advantage of total potential of both graphics cards using GA-Z77X-UP4 TH am Iright?

2. In Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UP4 TH Specs Page under expansion slots its written "Whether PCI Express 3.0 is supported depends on CPU and graphics card compatibility." What does this mean?, So will intel i7 3770K and nvidia graphics cards are compatible? How do I check this?

3. So Asus support dual x16 slot and Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UP4 TH supports just single x16 slot is not going to make any change to me , Am I right?

 

[lehtv]

1. All Z77 boards support PCIe 3.0. You can take full advantage of two graphics cards in any SLI certified motherboard, the cheapest of which are around $120-130. You don't need a $200+ board for SLI support. However, I don't know what board to recommend to you with regard to Hackintosh compatibility.

2a. It means that if your graphics card is PCIe 2.0, the PCIe 3.0 slot on the board will be limited to PCIe 2.0 mode. It's just another way of saying the board is compatible with a little bit older hardware as well. GTX 670 is PCIe 3.0.

2b. The i7-3770K is compatible because the board has the right socket, LGA1155. The NVIDIA card is compatible because the board has PCIe which is the current expansion bus standard for consumer graphics cards.

3. Correct. In more detail, read below...

Gigabyte Z77X-UP4 TH does either one PCIe 3.0 slot at x16 or two slots at x8 each. Same for Z77X-UP5 TH.

The Asus P8Z77-V Premium has a total of four full length PCIe 3.0 slots. One slot populated -> x16 bandwidth. Two slots -> still x16 each, so this is an improvement compared to Gigabyte but you will see zero difference in framerates because the x8 bandwidth will not be saturated.

What the P8Z77-V Premium board is good for is running three or four graphics cards. With 3-4 slots populated, all slots will be x8. Essentially, the board has an additional onboard PCIe controller that handles two of the slots; this doubles the total bandwidth compared to the Gigabyte boards but is only useful when populating more than two of the four full length slots.

 

[luctantem]

So having only one x16 running slot in GA-Z77X-UP4 TH I will be perfectly ok adding 2 gtx 760 cards , only if I add 3rd card it would be a problem. ryt?

Thanks.