[Negotiator]

Is the asus a8n 32x sli deluxe at stock, will it give you better performance than the asus a8n sli premium at stock. even if it is a small increase. Also will future graphics cards make full use of the 32x bandwidth?

 

[Ste]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Negotiator Is the asus a8n 32x sli deluxe at stock, will it give you better performance than the asus a8n sli premium at stock. even if it is a small increase. Also will future graphics cards make full use of the 32x bandwidth?

There's the possibility that it might give you a bit of extra performance when running cards in SLI, but a single slot will still only use 16x bandwidth. Normally, when running in SLI, the bandwidth would reduce to 8x for both cards. With this board, the bandwidth is meant to stay at 16x for both cards.

 

[Negotiator]

but will cards in the future make full use of the 32x bandwidth?

 

[Ste]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Negotiator but will cards in the future make full use of the 32x bandwidth?

Possibly, a single GFX card will be able to utilise the full 16x bandwidth of the PCI-E, so if running 2 of these cards in SLI you might be able to utilise the 32x bandwidth.

Nobody knows for sure though. I suspect new technology will have been developed by then to allow extra bandwidth so as not to slow the cards down.

 

[Robilar]

I can say yes, for sure, considering I have both boards. I upgraded my motherboard before I upgraded my gpu and cpu so I had identical specs with the Asus A9N-SLI Premium and the Asus A8n32-SLI (the premium sat in a box for two months until I bought my 7800Gt and 4000+ to upgrade my main system and move my 3700+ and twin 6600GT's down). I ran benches before and after the move. The difference in numbers was an average of 10% increase (aquamark was about 15%). I reran the benches 3 times each just to be sure. I of course reloaded the systems but it was a relavtively new install prior (as I had changed my hdd from 2 36gb raided raptors to a 74 gb raptor about a month before) and all of the same drivers were used with the exception of the nf4 drivers which are different for the A8n32 boards.

Also STE, Anandtechs tests of the board determined that it was about 7-10% faster with SLI and 15% faster with single GPU's. They understood the SLI increase as that was anticipated but they couldn't determine why it was faster on a single card as well (although they re-ran the tests several times). They decided that it must have something to do with the 32x bus.

 

[Negotiator]

so, you think the 32x sli is faster at stock?

 

[Robilar]

Considering I don't overclock and all my benches were at stock, yes.

 

[Ste]

Interesting point Robilar. Just checked the review on Anandtech and there are big differences in favour of the Asus board.
Found this as well though that suggests the DFI nF4 SLi-DR is quicker with the single card: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200...n32-sli/6.html

 

[Robilar]

Yes, its a bit odd as you would think that the designers building a board for SLI enthusiasts would only be concerned about dual card performance and yet it seems on the top boards, single cards also benefit in performance. Can't complain though. I plugged my second 7800GT in last night. If I actually get 5 minutes to run some benches, I'll be thrilled.