JohnJSal

Can someone explain to me what it means for dual PCIe x16 slots to have one at x16 and another at x4 (or x8, or whatever)? What exactly does this affect? Is it much worse than having them run both at x16? Is the X38 chipset the only one that supports both at x16?

Thanks.

[-0MEGA-]

This is pretty similar to your other thread, but I'll just explain it briefly again. When you have a motherboard such as the P35, one PCI-E x16 slot runs at the full 16x speed, while the second slot runs at the 4x speed. Now they are both PCI-E x16 slots, however the second slot has 3/4 less bandwidth, which reduces performance in a CrossFire setup.

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JohnJSal

Yeah, I remember something about this before (maybe from you) but I never fully grasped the consequences of it. So does this mean that the second GPU in a dual setup wouldn't really be running at its potential?

addy999

Yea this means that the second gpu is not running up to the mark ... or you can say that at its potential....

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addy999

Yea this means that the second gpu is not running up to the mark ... or you can say that at its potential....

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Riders Of The Storm ~~~

[-0MEGA-]

Thats right.

__________________
Desktop // Laptop
Core 2 Quad Q9550 @ 4.0GHz // Core 2 Duo P8400 2.26GHz
Asus Rampage Formula X48 // Intel PM45
ATI 4870X2 2GB GDDR5 // 512MB GDDR3 9800M GTS
4GB (2x 2GB) DDR2 940 // 4GB DDR3 800
750GB SATAII w/32MB // 200GB SATAII 7200RPM
Creative SB X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty
SilverStone 750W +12V@60A
3DMark06: 21391 // 9179