Pci-E problem with C19-A SLI mobo

[mathewdbarlow]

Help guys.
Just got a new ECS C19-A SLI motherboard. Went with this board because my msi sli compatable board was DOA and after looking around the ECS board with the same set of features was retailing for £80 cheaper, a big big difference.

Read lots of reviews about buying this board as I was a bit unsure of why exactly it was so cheap. Turns out most reviewers were raving it was as good, if not better than most of the more expensive, branded motherboards out there.

Unfortunately I missed one thing in the reviews. It turns out that there is a glitch with this board that means that even though it has 2 16x pci-e interfaces, a single card will only run at 8x speed and there is nothing I can do about it.

2 things then please.

1) Is there anything i can do to get the full 16x support?

2) How much difference will I notice using a xfx 7900gs 256mb graphics card on 8x pci-e rather than 16x??? Will it make a massive difference to the performance of a high end card like this?

[Steve B]

could just require a BIOS update, which may be in the pipeline.

What size of screen and/or resolution are you driving, and what are you using it for?

[mathewdbarlow]

I am only using a 19" tft at normal resolutions. I am more concerned about the loss of transfer speeds and frame rates that I will be losing by the loss of bandwidth on the pci-e. Does a graphics card like the 7900gs take advantage of all the available bandwidth of 16x pci-e or is there plenty of excess left over after the graphics card is at full capacity?

[mathewdbarlow]

As for the bios update, I don't think that is going to happen. From researching further it appears it is a problem with the northbridge chipset that ECS chose for the board and it appears it will be unfixable. Apart from this it is a stonking board for the money and I have found no other problems with it. I need to make a choice now on whether I need to return this board due to the pci-e problem.

[Steve B]

if you're only driving 1280x1024, the differences should be minimal on an 8x bus.

Dont quote me on that one, someone'll be along to give you a better idea in a minute