Gigabyte boards compatible with PCIe 3.0 with just a BIOS update

[dazz 69]

H61, H67, P67 and Z68 http://www.gigabyte.com/press-center/news-page.aspx?nid=1048 Just with a BIOS update? Wow! Will ASUS be next?

[NGX 1]

I can feel the bugs crawling already :P

[VirginAus737 0]

Yay, so this means I won't need a new mobo! I think. this is great new for me cos the UD3P is a great board. Looks great, rear I/O is packed and the OCing features are great. I am thinking to upgrade to 3rd gen 2500k equivalent, GTX 670 and 8GB 1600 CL8. Should be nice but i doubt it will make much of a difference. If the budget allows I will put in an SSD.I noticed the Z68X-UD7 is not on that list, surely it must be alright, its top of the line.

[cmeeks 8]

Does Gigabyte mean PCI-E 3.0 compatible, or PCI-E 3.0 functional? That's two completely different things. Some of the ASRock boards actually have chips built in to the boards for full PCI-E 3.0 functionality.

[VirginAus737 0]

I could check mine but that means taking the GPU out. need a crane for that. I should have got an EVGA.

[dazz 69]

It looks like only the 8 lanes that go through the PCie 2.0 switches will work at PCIe 2.0 speeds. So you would have 8 lanes at 3.0 and 8 lanes at 2.0, which is still a 50% extra bandwidth. Enough to figure out if FSX is really PCie limited or not.I'm not really sure

[VirginAus737 0]

So with 1 GPU it would not matter would it?

[dazz 69]

So with 1 GPU it would not matter would it?

I'm googling all this, so take my conclusions with a grain of salt, but as far as I could gather it works like this:The PCIe controller in SB and future IB sports 16 lanes (2.0 the former, 3.0 the latter) the lanes in the motherboard have no bearing or limitation on PCIe speed, so as you stick a PCIe 3.0 CPU (IB) and a PCIe 3.0 GPU (Kepler) in your motherboard, everything works at 3.0 speeds... but then we got the switches. In a single 16x slot motherboard (no SLI/CrossFire) all 16 lanes are hardwired to the 16x mobo slot, so they will work at 3.0 speeds with the right CPU/GPUOur boards on the other hand have 8 lanes hardwired to the first slot, and 8 connected to PCIe switches. These switches multiplex the last 8 lanes between slot one and two, so that you can run one slot at 16x or two at 8x8xThe switches need to be PCIe 3.0 compliant or they will work at 2.0 speeds So entry level boards with a single 16x slot will automatically upgrade to full PCIe 3.0SLI boards with two cards: first slot (first 8 lanes) at 3.0 and second slot (the one fed by the switches) at 2.0If you have a single card in a board with SLI support and 2.0 switches, the first 8 lanes will work at 3.0 speeds and the other 8 at 2.0

[VirginAus737 0]

OK... That is past my knowledge but in simple terms, I should get better performance with the IB CPU and a Kelper GPU with the update cos it will run at 3.0. The speed isn't a hardware related thing its to do with your chipset, cpu, and GPU right?

[dazz 69]

OK... That is past my knowledge but in simple terms, I should get better performance with the IB CPU and a Kelper GPU with the update cos it will run at 3.0. The speed isn't a hardware related thing its to do with your chipset, cpu, and GPU right?

PCie 3.0 has twice the bandwidth of 2.0 (that's a 100% more BW). PCIe bandwidth is not a limiting factor nowadays in games, but as new GPU's get more powerful, and especially in multi GPU setups, PCIe 2.0 will eventually bottleneck graphics performance just like PCIe 1.0 did at one point.There's a posibility FSX is PCIe limited though. I don't think it is, but jahman for example does.If I got it right, you should have a 50% extra bandwidth with IB + Kepler in that motherboard, both in single and dual GPU setups EDIT: a diagram I found:

[VirginAus737 0]

So I won't get the full benefits but it will be better.

[cmeeks 8]

Dazz, I really appreciate you taking the time to look into this. I haven't had the time. From what you're telling us, we should have all bought low-end cheap boards and we would have full PCI-E 3.0?!

[VirginAus737 0]

the UD5 supports the update and yes, thanks Dazz.

[dazz 69]

Dazz, I really appreciate you taking the time to look into this. I haven't had the time. From what you're telling us, we should have all bought low-end cheap boards and we would have full PCI-E 3.0?!

Keep in mind that 99.99% of the people who might benefit from PCIe 3.0 (which is a 0.00000001% of the current human population :D) are the ones with SLI setups that run them at "just" 8x8xTwice the BW would mean getting the same BW as X58 at 16x16xI mean full PCIe 3.0 in single 16x boards is completely useless... unless (maybe) you are a FSXer

[VirginAus737 0]

But with the current GPUs the bandwidth makes the tiniest difference to the performance.