Just some clarifications on PCIe lanes

[Brody]

Hi guys,

I was hoping to get some clarifications in regards to PCIe slots, lanes and speed.
I'm building a workstation and I need enough lanes/slots to accommodate a dual GPU config, raid card and others. That's why I have selected the parts around Socket 2011.

But I'm reading here and there on forums that 1150 is more than enough unless you need to go above 3 GPUs, etc. ?

e.g. "Yep in a single or dual GPU configuration there is no reason whatsoever to go with a 2011 socket"
or "There is NO reason to go for 2011 UNLESS you have a use for more PCI-e lanes, which I can not see happening since 1150 already can do tri GPU cards with no effort."
Also "go with 1150. even with 3-4 GPUs it's already been shown that 8x vs 16x in multi card configs doesn't make much of a difference if any at all."

What do you think about this?

Also if I understand correctly, entry level sockets like 1150 have a very different PCIe lanes architecture that doesn't really allow them to use multi x16 cards configurations. Is that correct? For dual GPU at best we're at x8 + x8?

Unless there's a 1150 board that has a lot more than 24 lanes out there? (But it's a CPU limitation also right?)

Thanks!

 

[Brody]

Anyone?

 

[ummd]

Hi guys,

I was hoping to get some clarifications in regards to PCIe slots, lanes and speed.
I'm building a workstation and I need enough lanes/slots to accommodate a dual GPU config, raid card and others. That's why I have selected the parts around Socket 2011.

But I'm reading here and there on forums that 1150 is more than enough unless you need to go above 3 GPUs, etc. ?


What do you think about this?

Also if I understand correctly, entry level sockets like 1150 have a very different PCIe lanes architecture that doesn't really allow them to use multi x16 cards configurations. Is that correct? For dual GPU at best we're at x8 + x8?

Unless there's a 1150 board that has a lot more than 24 lanes out there? (But it's a CPU limitation also right?)

Thanks!

I can't speak to the dual GPU (x8 x8) bottlenecking or not (I've heard the same things, but have never tested), but the 1150 chipset has 24 PCIe lanes, 16 of which are dedicated to graphics. Don't think more than 24 is possible with that chipset

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/27/review_asus_z97_a_intel_9_series_chipset/?page=1

Interestingly, this ASRock board steals 4 of those 16 CPU lanes for a dedicated 4 channel M.2. But that's the only "oddball" mobo config I have come across. And the opposite of what you want...

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/samsung-xp941-z97-pci-express,3826.html