The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

I've swapped to my spare 8400GS because the PC crashed while outside gaming. Must concentrate on using as little power as possible...

The good news is I can now afford that corsair unit but I've got to wait for it to come through the post.

 

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1472/intel_p45_vs_x48_crossfire_performance/index9.html

This is what I was looking for earlier. And if this is HD4850s, imagine what HD4870X2s or HD5870s would be like.

 

http://forums.legitreviews.com/about22654.html

A possible upgrade contender for me, a P55 board with full 16+16 bandwidth on two PCIe 16x slots, I knew they existed

 

Yes the DFI will support x16 bandwidth on both of the two far-apart 16x slots, slot 2 and slot 6, if the middle 16x slot 4 is not used.

Remember, THAT was the first thing about the DFI H8 that was attractive, the fact that in crossfire, 16x slots 2 and slots 6 (the green slots below) were the hot x16 slots with max bandwidth.



The Asus Rampage Extreme and others had the two hot slots at 3 and 5 so you had to put the cards right next to each other for max bandwidth of x16.


You remarked at the time, that you could see that the DFI was a more intelligent crossfire board layout.

After you said, about a year ago, that you were about to pull the plug on quad cf because of your extremely frustrating problems with the gigabyte board, I went googling to see if anybody was running it successfully.

The first guy I came across who was running two 4870x2 cards successfully, was using the Asus Rampage Extreme x58, and he had posted pictures of his rig. From the pictures (see below) you could see the 4870x2 cards in slots 3 and 7 of the asus mobo for two slots of separation for better cooling. That's when I pulled up the mobo manual and said "Wait - on that mobo the 16x large size video card slots are slots 3, 5, and 7, but the two HOT x16 crossfire slots are 3 and 5. He's got that second 4870x2 running in an 8-lane slot!"

.................

But since the Rampage board was running the two 4870x2 cards successfully, using slot 7, I immediately exchanged my 7-slot antec 900 case at microcenter for the only 8-slot case I could see on their website which was the Spedo. (And I never looked back! I never looked forward either, lol, it's still sitting in the box in my garage. )

Then, soon after that, I saw a little advert in Hardware Cannucks for last week's review of the DFI Lanparty H8, and noticed their observation that DFI was unique in providing HOT x16 crossfire slots 4 slots apart at 16x slots 2 and 6 - provided you don't use 16x slot 4 - a better crossfire board design. (Damn! I could have kept my 7-slot Antec 900 that I bought on a great sale for $60 off for only $129.)

The Biostar Tpower x58 is not quite as good as the DFI, but better than the Asus, in that the two hot x16 crossfire slots are slots 2 and 5, so at least they're not right next to each other.


So you get one slot worth of gap between the two cards - that's a lot better than no gap at all, and that might work! The Biostar manual says specifically that 16x slots 2 and 5 are dedicated to graphics cards. Regarding slot 7, which is a 16x-size slot, but only x4 speed, apparently you can run anything at all in that slot - for example I could run a Raid 4x hardware controller in that slot, (like the $320 adaptec, or I guess even an 8x hardware controller, like the $290 areca, and let the areca negotiate the 4 lanes available to it through that slot. Hell 4 lanes is giant overkill of 2000MB/sec, on supporting a max of 4 hard drives.)

But Biostar does not exactly say to my satisfaction so far, what happens to the speed of slot 5, if you have a device in slot 7. After all, there are only 32 lanes total available, am I correct?

My guess, unless I am proven otherwise, is that slot 5 degrades to 8x, and you are saying the same thing:

But, on the other hand Sam, here is something very strange in regard to that board you like, the Biostar.

Take a look: The Biostar advertising specs on newegg very explicitly say that you can run speeds of x16, x16 and x4, all at the same time - which contradicts what you just said, and furthermore doesn't make sense, if there are only 32 lanes.



I'm going to try to find out from the Biostar manual, from the website, or from google, about that x16 x16 x4 lane claim.

If the Biostar Tpower X58 really has 36 lanes, 1 slot of breathing room between the x16 graphics cards, and 4 extra lanes for a Raid hardware controller, then maybe that's the motherboard of my dreams!

Yes, I DO dream about motherboards. Not really. Hahahahaha!

Sam, you have stated that the Biostar is your favorite X58 board. You and should check into that marketing claim of x16 x16 x4 and either disprove it, or find out where the extra 4 lanes are coming from.

SAM, ALL THIS CR*P YOU STARTED WITH RAID 5 JUST WON'T GO AWAY!!! LOL

Let's take a real close look at that Biostar Tpower X58 board you like, and figure out if you really do get x16 x16 x4 - where do the extra 4 lanes of pci-e come from?

Rich

 

im sure the last 4x slot is from the SB.

is there a back shot for the ASUS board?

because if mechanically is 16x soldered on the last slto then it will be full 16x 16x on the first and last slot, untill you fill in the 2nd pcie slot.

 

the source of that is form techpowerup

and it says

 

Hi Shaff, I'm going through the Biostar manual right now. What do you mean, the x4 comes from the SB - the southbridge? They have a chip in the southbridge adding four more lanes of PCI-e? If true that's friggin wonderful!!

How do you suppose we can verify that?

Sam, I saw your gigabyte graphs on crossfire 4850s. The gigabyte P45 board showed much reduced performance at 2560x1600 from crossfire, and the gigabyte x48 board showed dramatically improved performance.

Was THAT the board that was giving you fits - a P45 Gigabyte?

Ok Shaff, here's your back-side of the Rampage X58 Extreme:

........

I don't know, Shaff, the rear soldering looks identical to my eye between slots 2 and 7. Here's what the motherboard manual says:

...........

But look here, further down in the manual:



This is some weird shit. They still want you to put the two graphics cards next to each other, but you can put a x1 speed device in the 16x_3 slot, slot 7, and get x16 x16 and x1 speeds - that's 33 lanes!

The resetting of the graphics card slots only had to do with slots 5 and 7, default x8 x8, or manual x16 x1.



I'm still intrigued about how they get 33 lanes, rather than what I thought always was a max ceiling of 32. The Biostar looks way better with X16 slots 2 and 5, with one slot worth of breathing room.

Shaff, good buddy, pal, tell me more about this goddamm stuff about the Biostar (and I guess now the asus too) getting extra PCIe lanes (beyond the magic 32 lanes) from the Southbridge!!

I WANT IT TO BE TRUE! I WANT IT TO BE TRUE! I WANT IT TO BE TRUE! I WANT MY RAID 5 CONTROLLER! SAM SAID I COULD HAVE ONE! (... as they carry him off ...)

Rich

 

http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=iRlP8RG9han6saZx&templete=2

dual 16x and open ended 4x



that shows that ICH10R has 6 1x PCIE lanes from here, but they are not gaming fast.

to put 3 hd 5870s you will want 16x 8x 8x, not 16x 16x 1x.

on any board to get 16x 16x 16x (ie for tri sli/trifire) you WILL NEED an nvidia NF200 x50 board.

and there is always this:

http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=9ca8hJfGz483noLk&templete=2




http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=proddesc&maincat_no=1&cat2_no=170&prod_no=1795

also has full tri sli/tri fire.

also for the double spaceing you can use the slot 1 and slot 3 pcie 16x, which has an insane 3 slot spaceing. and then stick the raid card in the middle which will also get upto 16x.

the MSI board is probably the best IMO.

there is also the msi platinum sli, but its not for triple cards, only dual cards, and it has the extra spacing sam liked

 

Shaff, you're a complete genius.

All that bad sh*t I said about you, I take it all back

Before I review your post - which I see supports some stuff I just discovered from wiki - here's a page on exactly what you were talking about:



They indicate that the X58 has 40 lanes total, and they say that some of these are set up for Direct Media Interface, and a "spare" set. Provided the southbridge supports DMI also, which the ICH10 of course does, the "spare" set of lanes can be set aside for an additional x4 device, above and beyond the 32 lanes for the graphics cards.

Those Biostar guys weren't fibbing at all! The block diagram below shows 2GB/sec transfer between the northbridge and the southbridge, which equates to x4 PCIe bandwidth. Specs on the Biostar show a southbridge of ICH10 just like every other x58 board. So now I see where Asus and probably others, support an additional x1 PCIe lane with two x16 speed graphics slots. Biostar provides x4, for a total of 36 lanes, AND 1 full slot of spacing between the two graphics cards.

The wiki block diagram is slightly confusing. They say the x58 has 40 lanes, then they show 36 lanes of PCI 2.0 graphics support, but all the configurations add up to 32. So I am going to assume that either

1. the "36 lanes" was a misprint and that they meant to say 32, or
2. more likely, even though they are pointing to graphics card support, they are adding in the extra 4 lanes they talked about that come from the southbridge for a total of 36 lanes (just like the Biostar literature says.)


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


Okay, Shaff, thank you for that block diagram. It shows a lot of lanes coming from the Southbridge. Fantastic!

I see that my wiki block diagram is more specific to i7, my future new build - and both diagrams support the fact that the ICH10 supplies lots of lanes of PCIe by itself. The wiki diagram above shows 36 lanes available to devices - again just what Biostar was claiming which was not making sense to me. Now it does make sense.

I am back to quad CF, Shaff - I'm no longer thinking of running three graphics cards.

I was only thinking that way because I thought somebody said there would be no more dual gpu cards. But all the rumors are saying otherwise - that ATI will continue the strategy of putting out dual gpu cards - instead of trying to pour tens of millions into additional research to try to achieve the quantum leap of creating the fastest gpu (only to be leapfrogged by the green guys a few months later anyway.)

That business strategy makes sense to me, so I believe it is a safe assumption that we will see 5870x2 cards, and I therefore am back to QUAD CF.

That eclipse board you suggested is interesting. Like the Biostar it provides x16 speed in both slots 2 and 5, allowing one slot of breathing room for crossfire. The 16x slot 7, however, is like the asus - if you have two full size x16 graphics cards, then that slot provides only x1 speed.



Otherwise you can run all three 16x slots with graphics cards and get x16 x8 x8. If you wanted to run THREE GRAPHICS CARDS, that would be a better board than the Biostar, which gives you max x4 bandwidth in 16x slot 7, and in fact recommends that you do not put a vga card in that slot.

For my purposes, planning to run TWO GRAPHICS CARDS, not 3, the Biostar gives me x4 bandwidth on the 16x-sized slot 7, more bandwidth than the Eclipse at x1 which would limit me to 500MB/sec (which might normally be fast enough, but on some of these I have seen some very high burst read numbers in the 700MB/sec range and I don't want any bottlenecks holding back what Sam calls "astronomical improvements in performance.")

Also the Asus motherboard looks interesting - and there you go, a lot more than 32 lanes - support for three graphics cards at x16 for all three, which is 48 lanes - a total of 6 16x PCIe slots. Pricy at newegg for $449 - also, a lot of really bad reviews. Anyway, now that I'm back to 2 dual-gpu graphics cards and quad CF, not what I'm looking for. But quite interesting to see that for sure there is no 32 lane limitation.

So in that case, now that I have a clear understanding that the 32-lane limit existed only in my own mind - thanks Shaff for the help! - the x58 board that looks the very best to me now is the one Sam said he liked the best for X58, the Biostar Tpower.



I just hope it overclocks reasonably, and that I can get the 920 up to 4 ghz, and also I hope the northbridge will support all the traffic two 5870x2 boards will provide without overheating. I'm going to have to read some reviews about it.

I have to say, that northbridge copper cooler looks pretty nice - maybe I'll mount a little 40mm fan directly on it to make sure there is plenty of flow through the fins - the DFI review on an open test bed showed major reduction in temps on the northbridge when they added a fan pointing right down at it.

To summarize, the Biostar provides x16 speed in full-size 16x slots 2 and 5, providing a reasonable one slot of separation between the boards, which is way better than no separation at all. Additionally it provides a full size 16x slot 7, which they actually don't recommend filling with a graphics card, with maximum x4 bandwidth, the extra 4 lanes of PCIe coming from the southbridge support according to the wiki information up above.

Since all the data I have read and reviewed indicates that a true hardware Raid controller, a "PC on a card" as Sam put it last week, will enable a Raid array to achieve sequential read throughput much faster than an on-board Raid motherboard solution, then my plans for slot 7 of the Biostar motherboard would be to install a hardware Raid controller and run four hard drives in Raid 5, allowing reading of four VelociRaptor spindles at the same time, which should load my next game levels faster than the screen can display the words "LOADING ....." Hahahaha. (Thanks again Shaff.)

Rich

 

The main problem with the DFI layout is if you have a large cooler on the bottom card, there's very little room at the bottom of the system, if the PSU is there you basically have the red hot GPU touching the casing of the PSU. The Biostar board allows the second card to sit higher up so there is less interference.
You have merely summed the maximum speed of the slots of the Biostar to reach that 36 figure, that's completely irrelevant, that's like saying a P45 board has 32x because it has two 16x slots, ignoring the fact that when used together they run at 8x.
The limit of the X58 chipset is 32x and the limit of the P55 chipset, annoyingly, is 16x, so that leaves an external source to be providing the extra bandwidth. While as Shaff says, the southbridge could be producing the extra 4x (this seems quite likely as if it was from the NB, it should be a 16x slot like the others), I'm a little sceptical of the DFI P55 board having an extra 16x coming from nowhere. That said, why is it the only P55 board with two orange 16x slots? All the other P55 boards mark the extra slots in black to indicate they won't both run at 16x.
Nono Rich, neither of the boards in that article on crossfire performance with P45/X48 were ones I owned, they were the top end DQ6 models. The board I had issues with was the DS5, which turned out just to be a faulty board, with a lower maximum northbridge voltage of 1.4V. The X48-DS4 I have now has a maximum of around 1.6V, which is enough to get a reasonable overclock out of.
1x slots as far as I know DO come from the southbridge, which is why you get 33 lanes with not just the Rampage, but any board. This is why the idea that the Biostar's 4x slot coming from the southbridge has some credibility. There is already existing infrastructure there, it just needs beefing up a bit.
Right now, the only way to get past the lane limitation of the X58 is to buy a board with an nforce 200 chip on. In the past, these were ridiculously unreliable, I'm not sure if they still are or not. Of course, running Quad CF from 2 slots makes things a lot simpler. There are bandwidth-related performance differences don't forget, as you are sharing one 16x slot between 2 GPUs, but having 4 GPUs instead of 3 should still be beneficial, especially now that quad CF scaling is improving.
I see you've settled on the Biostar board as your favourite as I have. Biostar actually set some records for overclocking on P45, and I found this article a few days ago, which looks promising:
http://forum.novatech.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6013

 

I put 2 and 2 together and put my old 600w unit that doesn't have enough connectors for the 4850 into my 8400-ed PC and discovered something. It still does it. It could still be a PSU issue but I've canceled my Corsair in case I find something else. I'm going to try putting XP on an old IDE drive and then seeing what happens then. I pressume more failure.

 

So rather than be sure by testing a proper unit, you cancelled it? I get it, you still can't afford to replace the PSU with a proper one, you can be honest with us about it, just try to get it done as soon as you can...

 

rich the msi mobo i linked was the MSI Eclipse Plus, not the platinum.


http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/eclipse-plus-n200,2332-9.html

this is very intresting, though i know sam doesnt like tom.

 

Tom's have frequently been highlighted as the site showing the least difference with real PCI express bandwidth. From my own experiences I'm siding with Tweaktown, not THG. The fact that performance should go up from 16x down to 8x is hideously inaccurate.

 

I could/can afford it although I did lie by saying I ordered it in an attempt to convince myself to order it later in the day which I failed to do because I decided I would like to avoid having no money at all. Then rather than explaining my rather complex thought process I decided to say I cancelled it. I am now quite concerned as to whether or not your Psychic.

The PC seems to be running well on 7 RC 32-bit for reasons I don't understand as my 600w PSU kicks out even less on the 5V line then my 650w unit.

 

Such a voltage you may be able to get away with, it is sudden fluctuations that cause the biggest problems, and sudden fluctuations will rarely show up on software monitors that only refresh every few seconds. Your PC may be running at 4.5V on the 5V rail, but when you suddenly load up something it may drop as low as 3.9-4.0V, which will be enough to destabilise or shut down the PC. I would not try and make any definitive tests until you have a proper PSU, even if you end up borrowing someone else's rather than buying one of your own.

What?

 

Fixed. I was Chrome-less so just ran it through words spell checker without looking at the results.

 

Yes, the Biostar turned out to have the best design of all. When you first said it was your favorite for X58, that made me curious to know more about it. I read some of the newegg reviews - really strong board, and very good support staff. Then I read some other reviews on the web that talked about the origins of the company, coming from usually more modest level boards without frills, to a true top-of-the line board like the X58.

Since I have convinced myself that Biostar will deliver the goods via the southbridge lanes, I have read a lot of newegg controller reviews also.

A bunch of the newegg guys, running just one graphics card, have been stymied to find that the free video card slot on their motherboard will not support a disk controller card. One review specifically said that the x4 controller had to be placed in a slot that got the lanes from the southbridge. When I read that I thought - "Ah hah, well they should have bought a Biostar" haha.

Thanks for the link about the Biostar overclocking forum. I glanced through it - that's a good idea to get familiar with the settings the guys are having success with.

Rich

 

One thing that needs a little more research is whether X58 is affected by PCI express loading as X48. With an X48 Core 2 system, you can get a Q9550 to 4.1-4.2Ghz without too many issues if you use a single GPU. Use Quad crossfire and 3.7-3.8 is really the absolute max.

 

Oh, that's a really good point. So, max out your PCIe, and your overclock might suffer. Is it a voltage stability issue on the X48 boards? Any theories as to why that happens?