Asus P8Z77V

[John Pilgrim]

Specs fro the P8Z77V from from the Asus website
2 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (x16 or dual x8)
1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (x4 mode, black)
2 x PCIe 2.0 x1
2 x PCI

While the ‘black’ slot is physically x16, it only has x4 lanes, meaning a GPU in that slot will be restricted, if not starved, getting its data to/from the CPU.

The ‘blue’ and ‘white’ slots share x16 lanes, so if one were to put two GPUs in tho slots, they would each get x8 lanes, which will be reduced compared to a different motherboard that provides X16 to both slots, such as one from the P9X79 series.

As Juan Salvo pointed out in another thread, x8 might be satisfactory, but it’s certainly not going to maximize the potential of whatever GPUs you’re using.

Why skimp on the motherboard, especially if you can afford 3 GPUs?

John

[Simon Blackledge]

Thanks for the info.

My intention isn’t to skimp. I was just enquiring about options being a mainly mac shop it’s not my forte.

I may take a look at Z9PE-D8 WS but will probably go with a single gpu and p9x79pro to start.

S

[John Pilgrim]

SuperMicro has better boards (and board/case combos) than the Z9PE-D8 WS, plus it’s a bit of a pain to find a case to fit the EEB form factor of the Z9PE-D8 WS.

[John Pilgrim]

I just built a P9X79Pro system. It’s a good board.

[John Pilgrim]

Here are standard candle (8.2) tests for the P9X79 Pro system running R9.0beta

V1 2 nodes : 24 fps
V2 4 nodes : 24 fps
V3 6 nodes : 24 fps
V4 12 nodes : 17 fps
V5 NR 4 : 24 fps
V6 NR 4 : 24 fps
V7 NR 4 : 16 fps
V8 NR 4 : 4 fps

Asus P9X79 Pro motherboard
single 3.2GHz Intel i7 3930K 6-core CPU
64GB RAM
nVidia Quadro 4000 for GUI (at true x16 lanes)
nVidia GTX580 3GB for GPU (at true x16 lanes)
Windows 7 SP1 64-bit
nVidia 301.42 drivers