Dual x16 PCI-E Chipsets?

R

Ravennoir

Weaksauce
Joined
Apr 29, 2007
Messages
93
Hey Everyone,

Which Motherboard Chipsets Support Dual x16 PCI-E (for SLi)

I know the Nvidia 680i does

Which other ones are avaliable and what would you recommend ?

Thanks

-Raven
 
What Chipset does it Use ?

I have an issue with some of the Motherboard Layouts due to the cooling I have on my VideoCards
 
The chipsets that support dual 16X are:

Nforce 680i
Nforce 680a
Nforce 680i LT
Nforce 590
Nforce 4 SLI 32X (note there are many revisions of Nforce 4, Nforce 4 SLI does not usually support dual 16X)
and of course Xpress 3200 (580X), but thats for crossfire.

Now the question is, why do you care? No graphics card today can saturate 8 pci-e lanes. Infact, there are a couple people in this forum running Quad SLI on Nforce 570 (thats 4 lanes per core!!!) and it performs just as well as on an Nforce 590 platform!

which do i recomend? thats entirly dependant on your budget!
 
Im mainly wanting a board that I wont have to upgrade again in 6 months (like my current one)

I was looking at the DFI NF680i, Because my video cards cover the slot next to the PCI-e and the layout on the DFI board is good for this, but it is a bit pricey so I want to know the alternatives
 
I'd definitely recommend EVGA over DFI or ASUS right now. DFI boards are "flaky on their good days" in the words of our fearless header / [H]ard motherboard editor, and ASUS quality control/customer service appears to have gone to shit at some point while I wasn't paying attention.

EVGA on the other hand are the mostly undisputed champs of giving the people what they want at the moment. If you don't care about OCing quad cores, you can get a 680i SE board from them that'll OC dual cores great and run Quads at stock speeds for $145 after $10 rebate at Newegg right now, and for another $30 when you register it they'll pay shipping both ways and cross-ship you the new board should anything go wrong during the 3 year warranty period.
 
Slots go:
PCI-E 1x
PCI-E 16x
PCI-E 1x
PCI-E 16x
PCI
PCI-E 16x
PCI

Mounting in the top PCI-E 16x slot as you would with a single card, you only lose the PCI-E 1x slot below it, which is no great detriment as far as I'm concerned. Running SLI, however, you'd lose one of the PCI slots, which is a bigger problem as far as I'm concerned, but easily remedied by buying a new PCI-E 1x wireless card for me when and if I go that route.

The angle on this pic is bad for what I'm trying to show, but I promise the PCI-E 16x below it is accessible.
machine-open.jpg

Still waiting on my SATA DVDRWs...

Pic of the board stolen special from Newegg just for you:
13-188-019-04.jpg
 
SE is the least expensive, and there's no reason to buy the others unless you plan to OC a quad core. That'll cost you about $70 more. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188012 $215 after rebate and that will OC a Quad Core.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188019 $150 and that won't, but will run them at stock speeds and OC dual-cores just fine.

Both are the T as opposed to the A variants of the boards. I think the A's are wasteful -- only difference is the bundle and length of warranty. T-series are warrantied for 3 years, A's have a lifetime warranty and bigger bundle (pretty much, a few more SATA cables and that's it). A's tend to cost $50 or so more than their comparable T versions, and it doesn't seem to be money well spent unless you honestly think you'll be running the same board in 3 years... and that $50-70 you spend now won't be enough to replace it should it die after the warranty is up (hint hint: it will be)
 
ATi RD580 (for AMD) also supports dual X16 & so will Intel's X38 due ~September.
 
122-CK-NF68-T1 or 122-CK-NF68-A1

T1 has a smaller number of cables and 2 year warranty. A1 has a lot of cables, paper manual and limited lifetime warranty (1 owner can't be transfered) and they both support Quad core at FSB > 1066Mhz.

Now of course if you don't overclock and/or never plan to get a quad core the the SE would do nicely.

The 122-CK-NF67-T1 is a 680i LT chipset so it has only 1 Gigabit ethernet, 6 USB instead of 10, no 3rd PCI-Express slot at 8x (only 2x 16x) but it does support Quad core at FSB > 1066, no 7-seg display with boot codes for diagnostic, no PC speaker built in (ooooohhhhh).
 
I explained all of this in my post above. Not sure why people are acting as if I was trying to trick the guy.
 
I don't know, this question get asked every 2 days on the EVGA forum, theres always a new post about it and the same post on page 2. People don't look around I swear.
 
I just had a look at the A1 and for that price I can get the DFI one which has more features and a better layout, what would be the best reason to choose the EVGA over the DFI
 
Ravennoir said:
I just had a look at the A1 and for that price I can get the DFI one which has more features and a better layout, what would be the best reason to choose the EVGA over the DFI
Click to expand...

The eVGA is the 680i chipset while the DFI is the 680i LT. The LT is supposed to be a less capable OCer and I'm sure some of the native chipset features are reduced. In Nvidia's perfect world it goes like this 680i > 680i LT > 650i SLI > 650i Ultra. My personal take is that the 680i LT is a "fixed" version of the 680i, but officially referred to as inferior so as to not piss off the people who already had high end boards. I can't back that up with fact though ;). I have seen some very good quad core OC's with the 680i LT. Better than most 680i's.

montypythizzle said:
3 here also:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813121016
Click to expand...

AFAIK, the 975X boards don't have full x16 bandwidth in each of the x16 slots. If you populate two of them with two video cards, they will reduce to x8/x8. This is how my P5W worked when I was running Crossfire in it. I believe the point of this thread was to talk about full x16/x16 bandwidth.
 
I have an interest in the Asus P5NT-WS, with it's 3 PCI Express X16 slot, supporting SLI at X8, X8, X16 or X16, X1, X16 speed. Unless I'm interpreting this incorrectly, these figures mean that SLI will run with dual X16 speed.
This board also has 1 PCI-X slot. I'm not sure of the significance of that newer PCI standard. I'm hoping someone has some experience with it.
 
Cyant said:
122-CK-NF68-T1 or 122-CK-NF68-A1
Now of course if you don't overclock and/or never plan to get a quad core the the SE would do nicely.
Click to expand...

SEs will overclock Core 2 Duos just fine. They only have issues overclocking Quads, and will run Quads at stock speeds without issue.
 
RobertM said:
I have an interest in the Asus P5NT-WS, with it's 3 PCI Express X16 slot, supporting SLI at X8, X8, X16 or X16, X1, X16 speed. Unless I'm interpreting this incorrectly, these figures mean that SLI will run with dual X16 speed.
This board also has 1 PCI-X slot. I'm not sure of the significance of that newer PCI standard. I'm hoping someone has some experience with it.
Click to expand...

I assume the P5NT board will also work with x16/x16 SLI. For normal desktop users, PCI-X is pretty useless as PCIe is essentially the newer PCI standard. PCI-X is more for server environments. There are RAID cards and some other devices that are PCI-X, but generally, there are PCIe versions also available. I wouldn't buy that board just because it has a PCI-X slot.
 
silent-circuit said:
SEs will overclock Core 2 Duos just fine. They only have issues overclocking Quads, and will run Quads at stock speeds without issue.
Click to expand...
I just said that. If you are gonna quote me to try to make me look like a cluless moron then quote the entire text...
 
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