What is the deal with this MoBo?

[AD-15]

Hello,

I have just been reading this review on Hexus of the new ASUS mobo:

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=7763&page=1

The problem is, if it's a 965 chipset, and it actually says there is no multi GPU support, why are they two PCI express x16 slots????

I've read on, and from what I understand, one of them only supports 4x. So why is is in the form of a 16x slot??

Thanks!

[this_is_gav]

There's many more uses to a PCIe slot than graphics cards.

You can stick anything PCI Express in there, all the way back to a 1x modem. In theory you can use a graphics card in a physical 1x slot too, but performance would be... fun.

RAID and SCSI cards, sound cards, physics cards, modems, pretty much anything that can run on the PCI Express bus will work in there.

Anyway, it's only mechanically a 16x, not in practise - not entirely sure why, but it has no drawbacks being full size.

[AD-15]

Thanks for replying.

So I could plug in a PCIe 4x card for example, and it would lock into place perfectly, and at the same time receive the full bandwith?

[shaithis]

Thanks for replying.

So I could plug in a PCIe 4x card for example, and it would lock into place perfectly, and at the same time receive the full bandwith?

Correct. I use a 8x PCI-E RAID controller in the 16x slot on my motherboard, works at a full 8x.

One caveat.......I had a P5B originally and my 8x controller did not like running at 4x in the 16x/4x slot and dropped down to 1x to compensate. It seems a lot of PCI-E devices do not like running at speeds less then their max, unless its 1x.

[AD-15]

Ok, thankyou very much!