Intel's X79 Chipset, Core i7 3960X & DX79SI Motherboard

[Frag Maniac]

All 1155 boards are Ivy ready. It will be a simple bios update much like current AMD setups.

I doubt they are ready for Octo, as there aren't any Octo chips ready for launch that I know of for the desktop platform.

Hmmm, wasn't aware of that, I thought it was only Z68s that did. I'm guessing Z68 is more geared to take full advantage of IB though, and may even handle the BIOS flashing with less problems. Guess we'll see when IB hits.

AFAIK though, P67 doesn't support Pci-Ex 3.0.

[PP Mguire]

Hmmm, wasn't aware of that, I thought it was only Z68s that did. I'm guessing Z68 is more geared to take full advantage of IB though, and may even handle the BIOS flashing with less problems. Guess we'll see when IB hits.

AFAIK though, P67 doesn't support Pci-Ex 3.0.

Not like it's really needed. I bet my next glass of Scotch the newly released PCI-E 3 graphics cards don't even fully saturate 2.0. Having the next step up was never really a concern for me personally. I suppose the only thing having 3 would be good for is Intel's stupid idea of lane sharing for SLI/Xfire. 8x/8x on a mainstream 3.0 board would essentially be 16/16 in 2.0. Even then, I don't even think but the high high end cards (like 6990, 590 ect) saturate even 8x 2.0. Could be wrong, but just my opinion since I don't buy higher end cards.

Most people buying 1155 these days are going Z68. Even if P67 wasn't supported, I'm sure if people bought that board they won't be jumping on the next die shrink any time soon. It's safe to say that most people buying Intel don't expect half assed upgrades like AMD. In other words 50 million different CPUs across 3 sockets.

[Frag Maniac]

Yeah that's no doubt true on the Pci-Ex bandwidth. You'd have to really count on a HUGE leap in GPU power coming in the next couple years for it to be useful anytime soon. TechPowerUp has shown with bench tests that the GTX 480 and HD 5870 exceed Pci-Ex 2.0 x8 bandwidth by only 2%. That's pretty telling in itself how much headroom there is even in Pci-Ex 2.0. Take 4 times that for one Pci-Ex 3.0 x16 slot, and you have enough bandwidth to last for years. It begs the question if SLI/Crossfire are really necessary. I haven't checked the wattage handling of Pci-Ex 3 vs Pxi-Ex 2, but if it's higher, THAT may be one of the best reasons to buy into it. The upcoming GPUs will be 28nm, but if they cram a lot onto one GPU, they still might draw even more power. You never know though, it could end up being like HDD tech. Theoretically a SATA II drive has PLENTY of data transfer speed in it's interface to produce much higher write speeds than you see on SATA II drives, but only the SATA III drives get the tech necessary to produce such results. That's one thing I don't like about the PC industry, they always push the new standards before fully utilizing the ones they replace. Planned obsolescence.

[PP Mguire]

Yeah that's no doubt true on the Pci-Ex bandwidth. You'd have to really count on a HUGE leap in GPU power coming in the next couple years for it to be useful anytime soon. TechPowerUp has shown with bench tests that the GTX 480 and HD 5870 exceed Pci-Ex 2.0 x8 bandwidth by only 2%. That's pretty telling in itself how much headroom there is even in Pci-Ex 2.0. Take 4 times that for one Pci-Ex 3.0 x16 slot, and you have enough bandwidth to last for years. It begs the question if SLI/Crossfire are really necessary. I haven't checked the wattage handling of Pci-Ex 3 vs Pxi-Ex 2, but if it's higher, THAT may be one of the best reasons to buy into it. The upcoming GPUs will be 28nm, but if they cram a lot onto one GPU, they still might draw even more power. You never know though, it could end up being like HDD tech. Theoretically a SATA II drive has PLENTY of data transfer speed in it's interface to produce much higher write speeds than you see on SATA II drives, but only the SATA III drives get the tech necessary to produce such results. That's one thing I don't like about the PC industry, they always push the new standards before fully utilizing the ones they replace. Planned obsolescence.

As to the first part, there is a market for multi-GPU systems because it indeed works. I'm not gonna lie, if I had the cash I would have bought a better P55 board to fully utilize both of my 465s. Since I didn't have the cash, I opted to trade for better water parts on the quest for a silent PC. According to the wiki maximum slot power is still 75w for slot, 75w for 6pin, and 150w for 8pin.
As to the standards, well it has to be around before companies start making products for it. Then it takes a while for said products to be released, then adopted (which usually is the longest part).

As to the SATA2 thing, there are plenty of SSD's out there that can fully saturate the SATA2 bus. For instance,
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820227704

285/275MB/s burst and a sustained write of 250MB almost caps the 384MB/s theoretical limit. SATA3 is double that and is almost completely saturated as well. Couple hundred more MB/s with a new controller and SSD's will cap that too. It is my opinion that SSD technology is actually held back by current controllers. A PCI-E SSD can do double and triple that of SATA SSD's yet SATA3 drives have managed only a mere 500+MB/s. If you are talking strictly mechanical, well then PATA 133 was fine for them lol. I'll be the first to say that the only reason I adopted the SATA standard was because I had ports and the cable was smaller for better management in my case.

[Frag Maniac]

I guess I didn't explain that is SLI/Xfire really necessary comment very well. I meant if they could use anywhere NEAR the bandwidth of even just a Pci-Ex 2.0 x16 slot on one card. Clearly there's enough bandwidth there for far more powerful cards than we've seen so far, but the power efficiency has to be there first.

The next line of 28nm GPUs hopefully will be a good step in that direction. Frankly I'd like to see the multiple card thing become obsolete, but power and thermal efficiency has a long way to go to catch up with the bandwidth, even Pci-Ex 2.0 bandwidth. The Pci-Ex power handling to bandwidth ratio is one thing that is taking some time to balance out.

On SATA II vs III, obviously I meant HDDs, like I said. A lot of people are looking back and saying, wait, why haven't they made any faster SATA II HDDs if they can make SATA III ones that fast. Clearly it's not due to the interface. Sure SSDs are fast and trendy, but the price to capacity ratio is still off putting, and they have their quirky ways that require a lot of OS feature disabling, and they degrade in performance over time. Still though, I eventually plan to have at least one 120-128GB SATA III SSD, half of it to be used for OS and apps, the other half probably for Smart Response.

[PP Mguire]

I guess I didn't explain that is SLI/Xfire really necessary comment very well. I meant if they could use anywhere NEAR the bandwidth of even just a Pci-Ex 2.0 x16 slot on one card. Clearly there's enough bandwidth there for far more powerful cards than we've seen so far, but the power efficiency has to be there first.

The next line of 28nm GPUs hopefully will be a good step in that direction. Frankly I'd like to see the multiple card thing become obsolete, but power and thermal efficiency has a long way to go to catch up with the bandwidth, even Pci-Ex 2.0 bandwidth. The Pci-Ex power handling to bandwidth ratio is one thing that is taking some time to balance out.

On SATA II vs III, obviously I meant HDDs, like I said. A lot of people are looking back and saying, wait, why haven't they made any faster SATA II HDDs if they can make SATA III ones that fast. Clearly it's not due to the interface. Sure SSDs are fast and trendy, but the price to capacity ratio is still off putting, and they have their quirky ways that require a lot of OS feature disabling, and they degrade in performance over time. Still though, I eventually plan to have at least one 120-128GB SATA III SSD, half of it to be used for OS and apps, the other half probably for Smart Response.

Well to be realistic if things continue the way they are the cards will never exceed or come close to the bandwidth offered by the slots. I think they learned their lesson with AGP on that one. With that being said, I really dont ever see SLI/Xfire going away because instead of dropping a ton of cash on a single monolithic GPU it is easier to buy a cheaper one and add later. It is also a good way for businesses to make more cash for people buying multiple cards.

The extra bandwidth provided on SATA is strictly for SSDs and mechanical drive caching. I see mechanical sticking around for a while, but eventually it is going the way of the do-do. Idk about anybody else, but I don't need to do mass amounts of tweaking for my SSD and after a few years of strong use it still benches what it was initially rated at. For being a first gen I'd say that's rather good considering I tossed Windows 98 at it........which was a rather dumb idea. I think article writers back in the day added paranoia because of a "decreased" life span to SSD's when in fact the life span of 24/7 constant I/O is 5+ years depending on the drive. I don't plan on sticking to this SSD in 3-5 years lol and anybody who will drop money on an SSD strictly for performance wont either. In that regard, lifespan for non-storage usage is kinda moot. Do I think SSD's will overtake mechanical drives for long term storage? No, not in a long shot, but I do hope they take over mainstream day to day use soon so the $/GB goes down.

[Frag Maniac]

Yes, of course there's little to no risk of exceeding Pci-Ex bandwidth with their having gone to 3.0, I'm not arguing that at all. I'm saying, as always, they trickle out tech to juice profits out of many levels and units of it piecemeal vs giving us more simplified and robust hardware to begin with. Planned obsolescence is a big part of PC biz both financially and psychologically. Lots of consumers get caught up by it thinking they need to keep upgrading every couple years because of it, and it actually does more harm than good when you consider many don't have the expertise or are afraid to learn how to choose and install parts, so they jump ship to console gaming.

Again, the point I was making about the differences in SATA bandwidth was not in reference to SSD application. I was merely stating they've almost entirely skipped over applying higher write speeds to SATA II HDDs, and only supported SATA III HDDs with it lately, yet most MBs that have SATA III only have two SATA III ports. The HDD write speeds I alluded to would be easily possible on SATA II drives, they just don't put the tech there. It has nothing to do with SATA III level bandwidth, because 158Mb/s is nowhere near SATA III's capability, yet only SATA III HDDs are that fast.

Your SSD testimonial is far from typical, esp for a first gen product. What SSD do you have? Surely you must have seen that even the top brands have forums with guides on how to prepare an SSD for long term use after the OS is installed? It basically involves turning off several write intensive OS features. SSDs have also undergone a fair number of changes in controller design, Nand and firmware, and the warranties, esp on first gen units, typically aren't as long as those of HDDs. I've also seen lots of customer testimonials saying performance degrades over time.

[PP Mguire]

Yes, of course there's little to no risk of exceeding Pci-Ex bandwidth with their having gone to 3.0, I'm not arguing that at all. I'm saying, as always, they trickle out tech to juice profits out of many levels and units of it piecemeal vs giving us more simplified and robust hardware to begin with. Planned obsolescence is a big part of PC biz both financially and psychologically. Lots of consumers get caught up by it thinking they need to keep upgrading every couple years because of it, and it actually does more harm than good when you consider many don't have the expertise or are afraid to learn how to choose ans install parts, so they jump ship to console gaming.

Again, the point I was making about the differences in SATA bandwidth was not in reference to SSD application. I was merely stating they've almost entirely skipped over applying higher write speeds to SATA II HDDs, and only supported SATA III HDDs with it lately, yet most MBs that have SATA III only have two SATA III ports. The HDD write speeds I alluded to would be easily possible on SATA II drives, they just don't put the tech there. It has nothing to do with SATA III level bandwidth, because 158Mb/s is nowhere near SATA III's capability, yet only SATA III HDDs are that fast.

Your SSD testimonial is far from typical, esp for a first gen product. What SSD do you have? Surely you must have seen that even the top brands have forums with guides on how to prepare an SSD for long term use after the OS is installed? It basically involves turning off several write intensive OS features.

They've also gone through a fair number of changes in controller design, Nand and firmware, and the warranties, esp on first gen units, typically aren't as long as those of HDDs. I've also seen lots of customer testimonials saying performance degrades over time.

I know what you're saying with the drives. I'm saying it is moot because you can't "upgrade" write speeds on a mechanical drive without giving it a ton of cache....which is the second thing I said SATA3 is good for. Faster bus to support the onboard RAM cache in mechanical drives means longer and quicker burst speeds. Still though, it will never change sustained reads and writes of mechanical drives unless they have come up with some miraculous technology that supersedes the limits. Which is why you see no "improvement" between SATA1, 2 and 3 HDDs.

Far from typical? No, I just don't subconsciously get paranoid and think my drive is degrading simply because my Windows install is getting bloated. I have a first gen 64GB G.Skill drive. This one right here to be exact.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231220

I still get 150MB/s read sustained and 75-90MB/s after all these years AND even after I thought I had destroyed it by installing Windows 98 on it as a test. Yes, I know of the many ridiculous guides out there and the only thing I do is disable pagefile which is something I've been doing a long time since before I had an SSD. Any other disabling I do is simply to rid Windows of it's bloatness and not simply because of my SSD. I also only install Windows, Firefox, and Xfire on my SSD and the rest goes on my HDD because the more you fill it up, the slower it goes. Most people can't tell the difference between actual degradation and simply having a horrible Windows install. I also changed the internal RAID settings on my SSD as well. I did it a while ago and can't remember exactly what the benefit was but I do remember doing it.

[Frag Maniac]

You're still not getting it. You don't NEED to go with a SATA III interface on a HDD to get 150Mb/s plus write speeds. They merely supply only the SATA III HDDs with the necessary cache to sell SATA III to the public as the new interface, long before SATA II was ever fully, or even near fully tapped in it's potential. Yet where are the MBs with multiple SATA III ports? Most only have 2, as I said.

Yeah right, like OCZ and other top manufacturers of SSDs are telling people to disable not just page file, but restore point, write caching, etc, to boost performance, just for the hell of it? You own an SSD, but it sounds like you're not quite in the loop as to the problems, actual problems not these noob paranoid reactions you claim.

I've come to recall how pointless it is chatting with you in your last two responses. I think you're living in fantasy world kid.

[PP Mguire]

You're still not getting it. You don't NEED to go with a SATA III interface on a HDD to get 150Mb/s plus write speeds. They merely supply only the SATA III HDDs with the necessary cache to sell SATA III to the public as the new interface, long before SATA II was ever fully, or even near fully tapped in it's potential. Yet where are the MBs with multiple SATA III ports? Most only have 2, as I said.

Yeah right, like OCZ and other top manufacturers of SSDs are telling people to disable not just page file, but restore point, write caching, etc, to boost performance, just for the hell of it? You own an SSD, but it sounds like you're not quite in the loop as to the problems, actual problems not these noob paranoid reactions you claim.

I've come to recall how pointless it is chatting with you in your last two responses. I think you're living in fantasy world kid.

Living in a fantasy world? Dude, you were the one so set on claiming my computer couldn't max Metro2033 but yet I proved it to you and you still thought it was fake. Maybe you should take heed that I have quite a bit of experience with computers beyond what you are able to comprehend. Just because I'm young doesn't mean I don't have years of experience. On the flip side, guys stuck in the old school have loads of experience but yet still can't top me in what I know. Hasn't it occurred to you that I've been in the SSD field since they were brought a long, and since mine STILL performs the way it is meant to that it might mean I know a thing or 2 about them? I'm completely in the loop of SSD's and know exactly what each and every "disable" means and what it is intended to stop. Do I do them? No, because they aren't necessary and it's quite obvious. Oh wait, but you missed on key point in my past posts. I said it doesn't mean I didn't already disable those Windows features before I got an SSD. So, in plain English what that means is over half the things these stupid little guides tell you to disable I had already been disabling them before SSD's became popular. I've disabled restore since early XP, write caching since ME, superfetch since Vista, and the list goes on. The noob paranoidness comes from people thinking this will drastically raise the life span of their SSD but when in all reality it doesn't matter anyways. The people experiencing drastic slow downs is because of their constant benching, constantly installing a load of crap on their SSD, viral infections causing tons of I/O, failing to swap a page file or disabling it, RAID, crap FW, and the list goes on. The guides are simply there to make people feel better about their purchase when in all reality they will probably be replacing that drive way before it may die due to it's "lower" life span. That was my point all along and you clearly missed it.

You also missed the HDD point as well. SATA3 is there as a bus to raise the theoretical read/write limits of SSD's. HDD's simply have the interface for bigger caching and to sell to idiots who think having a SATA3 drive is faster than having a PATA drive. Other than that it means squat since you can't raise the read/write speeds of the already maxed out mechanical drive. Sheesh, I'm out.

[Joshua_Mahr]

I have over 7 SSD's one of my old ones I gave away in a contest to Cody and it still works great. Do you think I bother turning all those things off anymore in Win 7. Noppers.. I Have a SSD that is 2 yrs old and still boots win 7 in a couple seconds. If you not an idiot with the drive then it will last. I have to agree with PP a little those guides are just to help the newbs feel better about their life span and expense.

[Frag Maniac]

That's not the consensus I've gotten chatting on other forums with pretty tech savvy members. I'd rather trust those testimonials than ones from a site known for it's amateur hour hardware reviews, esp concerning PSUs.

[Joshua_Mahr]

Wow are we having a bad day? Needing to vent a little? Degrading our fourm cause people don't like your opinion. Why are you here? I am sorry I don't see it being worth the time. If a drive looses performance I just buy a new one. My time is so much more valuable then doing all those little tweaks on the over 20 computers I have at home. But then again I have money and don't need to OCD about my purchases to squeeze an extra bit of speed or month of life. I like excuses to buy new computer stuff.

[gstillman-Stephanie]

New options will show up all the time. Filling the bandwidth of the PCIe 3.0 will happen soon enough. Getting harder all the time to spec out our new computer wish lists while keeping the costs reasonable. Intel's new hardware and socket will likely show up soon in the folding performance for the group.

So, what hardware configuration in a single box, single processor, single GPU will max out the ppd?