SLI question -- Full speed?

[BoboKatt]

I am totally lost -- I think I must have misunderstood one of my friends but they were trying to tell me that not all SLI boards are true full speed. For instance they were talking about the new Asus A8N32-SLI that it's a full speed SLI setup that each PCI Express slot is X16 or something. So now I am lost.. is this true? are there earlier sli mobos that did not support this.. is this a newer standard and ist that Asus board the only one that offers this?

Thanks

 

[Wentelteefje]

Strange understanding of "full speed" SLI... If they mean 16x by that, then yes it's true... The regular nForce4 SLI chipset provides 2x 8 lanes (hence PCIe 8x) for each graphics card, where the newer nForce4 SLI 16x chipset gives them the full 16x...

No big deal actually... PCIe 8x gives enough speed even for the fastest graphics cards around... The only benefit from 2x 16 lanes can be seen on very high resolutions...

There are already other boards out as well... The Abit AN8 32x and ECS KN2 SLI for instance (when it's AMD), the Asus P5N32-SLI Deluxe (Pentium 4)...

 

[Allio]

This issue is being overplayed even more than the switch from AGP 4x to AGP 8x was.

 

[Skott]

The difference between AGP 4X and AGP 8X really wasnt that much. The same can be said for PCIE 16X and PCIE 32X right now but the potential is much more once its refined. And if you factor in SLI or Crossfire the potential increases are even higher.

For those who cannot decide or totally confused I'd suggest this. Get a 32x mobo if you can afford it but if you cant then just get the 16x version and dont fret about it. Get 32x or whatever is new on the next upgrade/build. Right now SLI and Crossfire bring more performance increase than the current PCIE jump to 32x.