Hi guys. Sorry that my first post is so technical in nature, but I thought if anyone could help, it was these forums 
I have some fairly newbie questions about motherboard PCIe lanes, but I'm struggling to find the answers. In particular, about p55 motherboards and bottlenecks for sata 6gpbs and USB3 for which two articles have served as background reading:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2973/6gbps-sata-performance-amd-890gx-vs-intel-x58-p55/1
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/usb-3.0-sata-6gb,2583.html
My first question is how are PCI (non-express) lanes served?
In the chipset diagram from Intel (below) there's no mention of them. Are they only provided by third-party chips which take from the already narrow pool of PCIe lanes off the PCH?
Secondly, what kind of solutions exist for PCIe x4 slots off the PCH? Specifically thinking about devices like the OCZ Revodrive - if p55 motherboards exist with a x4 connector do they use a full four lanes to connect it to the PCH?
If a further four lanes were taken up by a PLX chip to provide 2x full speed PCIe 2 lanes for Sata 6gbps/USB3 then there'd be none left for x1 expansion cards or maybe even PCI slots if they run from the PCIe lane allocation.
So.. would my only solution to have both a x4 slot and USB3/Sata 6gpbs be a Gigabyte board that ran the graphics lanes at x8 and used one of them to power USB3/Sata 6gbps? Can such solutions run both USB3 and Sata 6gbps concurrently? Finally, are there any likely limitations from this setup in the future such as x8 becoming a bottleneck for graphics?
Thanks in advance!
I have some fairly newbie questions about motherboard PCIe lanes, but I'm struggling to find the answers. In particular, about p55 motherboards and bottlenecks for sata 6gpbs and USB3 for which two articles have served as background reading:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2973/6gbps-sata-performance-amd-890gx-vs-intel-x58-p55/1
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/usb-3.0-sata-6gb,2583.html
My first question is how are PCI (non-express) lanes served?
In the chipset diagram from Intel (below) there's no mention of them. Are they only provided by third-party chips which take from the already narrow pool of PCIe lanes off the PCH?
Secondly, what kind of solutions exist for PCIe x4 slots off the PCH? Specifically thinking about devices like the OCZ Revodrive - if p55 motherboards exist with a x4 connector do they use a full four lanes to connect it to the PCH?
If a further four lanes were taken up by a PLX chip to provide 2x full speed PCIe 2 lanes for Sata 6gbps/USB3 then there'd be none left for x1 expansion cards or maybe even PCI slots if they run from the PCIe lane allocation.
So.. would my only solution to have both a x4 slot and USB3/Sata 6gpbs be a Gigabyte board that ran the graphics lanes at x8 and used one of them to power USB3/Sata 6gbps? Can such solutions run both USB3 and Sata 6gbps concurrently? Finally, are there any likely limitations from this setup in the future such as x8 becoming a bottleneck for graphics?
Thanks in advance!
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