me1212
join:2008-11-20
Pleasant Hill, MO | Is pcie 3.0 really worth it? Like all the laptops I've looked at the lolz recently that had a gpu also had pcie 3.0, even for just a 650m. I mean every benchmark test I have seen shows pcie 3 not making more than 6fps worth of difference until it was used in a quad cf/sli and at crazy high resolutions(multiple monitors). I can see pcie 3.0 being worth it in 5 ,maybe even 4, years, but today is it really worth it for desktop or laptop with only 1 monitor @ 1080p or less? |
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 elwoodbluesElwood BluesPremium
join:2006-08-30
HarperLand | Doesn't cost you anything extra, it's part of the chipset |
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me1212
join:2008-11-20
Pleasant Hill, MO | Yes, but does it make a real difference today? I see a lot of people on other websites talking about upgrading their SB computers, and first gen core i7/i5 to ivy bridge because they are pcie2 not 3.
What I mean is, does pcie 3 offer any tangible advantages over pcie 2 today, and is it worth an upgrade from cpie 2 today? |
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| Upgrading just to get PCI-e 3 is not worth it. |
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 KrisnatharokCaveat EmptorPremium
join:2009-02-11
Earth Orbit
kudos:8 | reply to me1212
said by me1212:I see a lot of people on other websites talking about upgrading their SB computers, and first gen core i7/i5 to ivy bridge because they are pcie2 not 3.
People will throw out an entire rig to gain something that 99% of them most likely won't use? Wow people are stupid, who'dathunk?!
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If we lose this freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment, those who had the most to lose, did the least to prevent its happening. |
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1 edit | reply to me1212
Doesn't hurt to have it. |
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 OctaveanPremium,MVM
join:2001-03-31
New York, NY
kudos:1 | reply to me1212
Yeah doesn't hurt,.....
Still I'd be more interested in Intel Thunderbolt support then PCIe 3.0.
If I recall correctly X79 motherboards may or may not have PCIe support. I have an Asus P9X79 Deluxe and I'm not sure if it properly supports PCIe 3.0,....not a big deal to me either way,.... |
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 markofmayhemWhy not now?Premium
join:2004-04-08
Pittsburgh, PA
kudos:5
 ·Comcast
| reply to me1212
said by me1212:Like all the laptops I've looked at the lolz recently that had a gpu also had pcie 3.0, even for just a 650m. I mean every benchmark test I have seen shows pcie 3 not making more than 6fps worth of difference until it was used in a quad cf/sli and at crazy high resolutions(multiple monitors). I can see pcie 3.0 being worth it in 5 ,maybe even 4, years, but today is it really worth it for desktop or laptop with only 1 monitor @ 1080p or less?
Check out this benchmark:
»www.overclock.net/t/1220962/vega···16915399
Turns out once you hit tri and quad SLI/Crossfire and run resolutions at/over 3600 x 1920, PCIe 2.0 becomes choked. Running 1-2 cards and resolutions below 3600p, say, 1080p? Then no, PCIe 3.0 isn't much of a gain over PCIe 1.0 except a few latency gains, just like 2.0 over 1.0's gains.
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| said by markofmayhem:Turns out once you hit tri and quad SLI/Crossfire and run resolutions at/over 3600 x 1920, PCIe 2.0 becomes choked. And just how many people (percentage of users) use tri and quad SLI or Crossfire?
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markofmayhemWhy not now?Premium
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Pittsburgh, PA
kudos:5 Reviews:
·Comcast
| said by aurgathor:said by markofmayhem:Turns out once you hit tri and quad SLI/Crossfire and run resolutions at/over 3600 x 1920, PCIe 2.0 becomes choked. And just how many people (percentage of users) use tri and quad SLI or Crossfire? I know of one. PCIe 3.0 was "really worth it" for them...
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| A few exceptions don't make a rule. I don't have any hard data on how many people use then, but I'm fairly certain that SLI/Crossfire with more than 2 cards is way below 0.1%.
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markofmayhemWhy not now?Premium
join:2004-04-08
Pittsburgh, PA
kudos:5 Reviews:
·Comcast
| said by aurgathor:A few exceptions don't make a rule. I don't have any hard data on how many people use then, but I'm fairly certain that SLI/Crossfire with more than 2 cards is way below 0.1%.
And if you did have this "hard data", what context does it relate to this topic?
Without an obtuse extreme hardware configuration, PCIe 3.0 isn't "worth it" over PCIe 2.0, but doesn't harm anything if your hardware has it included as it is no additional cost.
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I found one! One person it makes a difference for out of billions who has the newest, top line gear shoved into a single configuration!
They are the same concept...
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 DarkLogixTexan and ProudPremium
join:2008-10-23
Baytown, TX
kudos:3 | reply to markofmayhem
Well I'd be interested in testing that
As most motherboards I've seen that can do tri or quad have 2 or more (sometimes all 4) step down to 8x to enable all 4 slots
so I wonder IF you had 4x full 16x slots would it still bog down?
and for 4x 16x 3.0 slots you'd have to do a dual 2011 board because you get 40 lanes per chip and genrally only 32 lanes are up for use for video.
though a Dual socket 2011 can do a full 4x 16x 3.0 system, |
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| reply to markofmayhem
said by markofmayhem:Without an obtuse extreme hardware configuration, PCIe 3.0 isn't "worth it" over PCIe 2.0, but doesn't harm anything if your hardware has it included as it is no additional cost.
We're drifting far away from the original question, which was reasonably well defined and specific:
quote:
I can see pcie 3.0 being worth it in 5 ,maybe even 4, years, but today is it really worth it for desktop or laptop with only 1 monitor @ 1080p or less?
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markofmayhemWhy not now?Premium
join:2004-04-08
Pittsburgh, PA
kudos:5 Reviews:
·Comcast
| reply to DarkLogix
See the test here, the board provides x16/x8/x8/x8 PCIe 3.0 configuration (40 lanes):
»www.overclock.net/t/1220962/vega···16915399
PCIe 3.0 doubles the bandwidth for each lane. Boards with proper "3.0" switches instead of "2.0" switches will allow the doubled bandwidth lane to travel downstream. This would result in the x8 stepdown on all slots to be equal to x16 PCIe 2.0 on all slots. In theory, the bandwidth between the dual socket PCIe 2.0 2011 board with 4 x16 slots and a PCIe 3.0 single slot board with 4 x8 slots would be equal.
Though the test is not able to know if the bandwidth is providing the increased performance or the reduction in latency, as this reduction would be amplified among the switches (or the penalty is amplified on the PCIe 2.0 board). Dual socket would also add additional latency and driver overhead. This would lead the PCIe 3.0 4 slot, single socket board to be simpler and cleaner in design with less latency, overhead, and chipwork to combine lanes resulting in better performance.
The EVGA SR-X is the only dual LGA 2011 socket board with SLI I am aware of. It is restricted to 2 x16 and 2 x8 lanes in quad sli and is unable to allow dual Sandy Bridge/Xeon 2nd gen i processors due to the QPI. I don't think this test can exist due to lack of hardware support, though the SR-2 with quad SLI could be compared to the SR-X, but I'm not sure how valid it is as it is a 1366 socket vs a 2011 socket and too many "other factors" taint the results.
»www.evga.com/products/pdf/270-SE-W888.pdf
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markofmayhemWhy not now?Premium
join:2004-04-08
Pittsburgh, PA
kudos:5 Reviews:
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| reply to aurgathor
said by aurgathor:said by markofmayhem:Without an obtuse extreme hardware configuration, PCIe 3.0 isn't "worth it" over PCIe 2.0, but doesn't harm anything if your hardware has it included as it is no additional cost.
We're drifting far away from the original question, which was reasonably well defined and specific: quote:
I can see pcie 3.0 being worth it in 5 ,maybe even 4, years, but today is it really worth it for desktop or laptop with only 1 monitor @ 1080p or less?
No drift at all, you didn't read the link. It shows what ridiculous stress must be placed on PCIe 2.0 before 3.0 results in measurable gains. I know not what else to do to help you see that my posts agree with yours and am confused why you are arguing that your assumption was correct while I posted data to back it up, which you did not. You also clearly missed this:
Down to the nitty gritty; if you run a single GPU, yes; a single 16x speed PCI-E 2.0 slot will be fine. When you start to run multiple GPU's and/or run these new cards at 8x speed, especially in Surround/Eyefinity, make sure to get PCI-E 3.0.
What is learned from this test?
That x16 PCIe 2.0 is still not capped. It only becomes hindered when reduced to x8 PCIe 2.0 lanes as is the case with SLI and CrossfireX. Even then, though, it requires a third or fourth card limited to x8 PCIe 2.0 before the fill rates begin to choke the GPU utilization below 100%. PCIe 3.0 enables an x8 lane slot to run with the performance of a PCIe 2.0 x16 lane slot relieving the choke when three to four cards deep.
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DarkLogixTexan and ProudPremium
join:2008-10-23
Baytown, TX
kudos:3
2 edits | reply to markofmayhem
said by markofmayhem:The EVGA SR-X is the only dual LGA 2011 socket board with SLI I am aware of. It is restricted to 2 x16 and 2 x8 lanes in quad sli and is unable to allow dual Sandy Bridge/Xeon 2nd gen i processors due to the QPI. I don't think this test can exist due to lack of hardware support, though the SR-2 with quad SLI could be compared to the SR-X, but I'm not sure how valid it is as it is a 1366 socket vs a 2011 socket and too many "other factors" taint the results.
»www.evga.com/products/pdf/270-SE-W888.pdf
Intel has a dual 2011 workstation board
As each 2011 socket provides 40 PCIe 3.0 lanes directly from the CPU a dual2011 has 80 lanes availale (though you must have both CPU's to get all 4 to work (the intel board disables 2 slots if the 2nd CPU isn't there)
»www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a···13121589
Yes it'd be very costly to get the board and 2x Xeon's and 4x GTX680's to test this
SO yes its a doable test but would be very pricey
So for most people currently the only card that I'd say needs 3.0 is the GTX690 (a dual GPU card) because it would effectively have an 8x 3.0 per GPU
Page 26 is a usefull diagram
»download.intel.com/support/mothe···r1_1.pdf
5way SLI could in theory be done on this board is not for the fact that the slots are so close
CPU1 feeds 2x PCIe 16x 3.0
CPU2 feeds 2x PCIe 16x 3.0 and 1x 8x 3.0
all directly without a PCIe switch in the way
So in theory IF intel redid the board to allow for spacing for dual width cards then the board would be able to do it, but short of that something like the quadro PLEX setup would be the only way to connect 4 highend video cards. There are other solutions than the PLEX units to doing an external video card But I don't know if there are any others for external SLI |
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markofmayhemWhy not now?Premium
join:2004-04-08
Pittsburgh, PA
kudos:5 Reviews:
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| The board you have linked to above can not be used, it does not support SLI nor CrossfireX. It provides the slots for paralleled computing through OpenCL or Cuda.
The only dual slot LGA 2011 socket board that supports SLI/CrossfireX that I know of is the EVGA SR-X.
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DarkLogixTexan and ProudPremium
join:2008-10-23
Baytown, TX
kudos:3 | There really isn't anything special to supporting SLI beyond providing the PCIe lanes and ability to connect the cards.
You could very well put 8 quadro plex units on it, totaling 16 video cards.
Electrically its fully capable and physically you could do 2 card SLI without a special external setup.
So it is possible but clearly EVGA's version was made with the intent that you could use all 4 slots with only 1 CPU
Ya I know what I linked is a server board and most likely the slots would be used for storage and/or GPU computing
BUT if someone made a full 16x 3.0 external SLI link setup (its do able) then it could be done and might be the only board capable of really seeing what quad SLI can do. |
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markofmayhemWhy not now?Premium
join:2004-04-08
Pittsburgh, PA
kudos:5 Reviews:
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| said by DarkLogix:There really isn't anything special to supporting SLI beyond providing the PCIe lanes and ability to connect the cards.
You could very well put 8 quadro plex units on it, totaling 16 video cards.
Electrically its fully capable and physically you could do 2 card SLI without a special external setup.
So it is possible but clearly EVGA's version was made with the intent that you could use all 4 slots with only 1 CPU
Ya I know what I linked is a server board and mostlikely the slots would be used for storage and/or GPU computing
The motherboard is not SLI compatible. This defeats all test results. The drivers would need "hacked" to spoof a chipset that is SLI compatible with performance degradation. It may also completely remove the second CPU socket as a driver would need to integrate since the logic in the board is missing. We know it is missing because the board is not SLI compatible. The SR-X by EVGA is the only dual socket SLI compatible board that I know of. It is more than electrical connections, these are not light bulbs. The switches and logic need to be present either in hardware or software.
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