Mobo for a 2600k?

[cadaveca]

Do you know if one should refraint from NF200 chip on motherboards if ones goal is to have PCI-E 3.0 capeability? I won't be running SLI/CF, but unaware whether the Asrock Extreme3 Gen3 Mobo uses this chip, and I have been reading that any board with this chip willl not be Gen 3 capeable... Will only be doing light overclocking, so I feel like the MSI/Fatality might be abit overkill (primarily gaming)

I will NEVER recommend a board with NF200. NEVER. Unless it's for a GPU-Compute farm.


Let me explain.

So, SKT1155, the PCIe graphics controller is inside the CPU, and features just 16 lanes. It can be configured to run x8/x8, or just x16, but other than that, OEMs do not have the ability to offer other arrangements. Any other PCIe connectivity with SKT1155 boards comes from the PCH.

So, NF200 "adds" PCIe lanes, usually offering x16/x16, or x16/x8/x8, or x8/x8/x8/x8.

However, the CPU, when dealing with multiple graphics cards, offers a single x16 or dual x8 link ONLY.

So, with NF200, we can take that x16/x16, and shove it into a single x16 link. Cool. Or we take x8/x8, and shove it into a x8 link. Neat!

Not.

Do I need to explain further? I mean, sure it works, but there is added latency involved, no matter what. thanks to nVidia's programming prowess, the impact is small, but it's still there.

If you want 4 GPUs on SKT1155, both GPU OEMs offer single-slot cards with dual GPUs, and these cards are intended to fit that market that needs 4 GPUs with Sandybridge. If you want to run three GPUs, there are different platform options available, and if they do not offer the CPU power you require, soon that will be on the market too.

The NF200 is an unelegant solution, only considering the other options available. If you are in the market for a SKT1155 board, chances are you are buying a new CPU too, so there's no reason at all right now to purchase a product with NF200, when really, if you want to run 3 or four GPUs, there are far better options.

 

[Jegergrim]

That info helped, My options now lie between the MSI Z68A-GD65 G3 which you reviewed, and the Asrock Fatality Z68 G3 motherboard, but cannot quite see the big difference, especially to justify the price increase on the Asrock, and both of these boards are free of the NF200 Chip right?

I also gave a look at the upcoming Asus G3 boards for LGA 1155, they have a 12+4VRM design, would this be worth waiting for? I'm going to buy the board late october in either case, hoping that Bulldozer will impact the prices of 2500k abit

 

[JrRacinFan]

ASRock P67 EXTREME4 GEN3 LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6...

If you don't need Z68.

 

[Jegergrim]

ASRock P67 EXTREME4 GEN3 LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6...

If you don't need Z68.

Isn't the PLX PEX8608 essentially the same as NF200, also conflicting with PCI-E 3.0?

 

[cadaveca]

Isn't the PLX PEX8608 essentially the same as NF200, also conflicting with PCI-E 3.0?

No, not if PLX chip is connected to chipset/PCH. Bottom slot is x4, so most likely run from chipset/PCH, and PLX chip is for onboard devices like USB 3.0, Lan, that extra SATA controller, and audio. This would be, technically, the right way to do it, as far as I understand things so far.

It's connecting to the CPU where the conflict begins with Gen3 PCIe.

 

[Shou Miko]

Isn't the PLX PEX8608 essentially the same as NF200, also conflicting with PCI-E 3.0?

no, the PLX PEX8608 takes a PCI-E x1 or x4 and expand it out to to more thing than just a PCI-Express line.

example here:

without PLX chip:

pics from: AsRock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 (AsRock.com)

the PLX chip is just doing so u can do more with a PCI-Express lane without losing speed on what it's connected to.

 

[cadaveca]

If it was conected to the CPU, yes, it would cause a problem though. The key part is that it is connected to the CHIPSET/PCH.

 

[Jegergrim]

Thanks alot for the clarification on that. What surprises me alot is that fact that theres nowhere, where theres information on the Asrock Extreme3 Gen3 motherboard, whether it uses NF200 or this one... Cause it's price is just right

 

[springs113]

Spoke to a msi rep before my latest build and was told the gd 65 is a better value (g3) as the real difference between the 80 n 65(extra lan, firewire port)

not to mention im @ 4ghz on my gd 65 on stock voltages.

 

[springs113]

@Cad your review was part of the reason i chose the MSI too, im basically waiting for a new gpu don't really know where to turn though.

 

[cadaveca]

Spoke to a msi rep before my latest build and was told the gd 65 is a better value (g3) as the real difference between the 80 n 65(extra lan, firewire port)

not to mention im @ 4ghz on my gd 65 on stock voltages.

The VRM is a bit different too.

@Cad your review was part of the reason i chose the MSI too, im basically waiting for a new gpu don't really know where to turn though.

That's not an easy question to answer. I always favor AMD cards, but nVidia has some good ones too. It all depends on how much you want to spend....most users here will recommend a 6950, based on past threads.

 

[Jegergrim]

The VRM is a bit different too.

I'm kind of confused by this motherboard "ASRock Extreme3 Gen3", I simply cannot conferm whether it has the NF200 chip or the PLX Chip, it doesn't state it on the ASRock website, but on one of their company videos Lee shows NF200 chip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlHqNJ1GhBo&feature=related e.g. at 0:12 and 2:26, however many other places I keep getting told its the PLX chip. Is this video talking about the old Extreme3, since I don't seem to see the "NF200" marking on the southbridge on pictures of the Gen3

Any chance you could help me out here? It's either going to be this board, or the MSI Z68A-65GD G3 which costs abit more

 

[cadaveca]

I am sorry, but the info provided is too confusing for me to clearly understand. Seems you're ahving the smae problem understanding too, so I don't feel TOO bad.

 

[Jegergrim]

I am sorry, but the info provided is too confusing for me to clearly understand. Seems you're ahving the smae problem understanding too, so I don't feel TOO bad.

Fair enough I'm just going to research it a little bit more, and if I don't figure it out, I'll go with the MSI board, it also simply looks qualitative, so I think I'll be very happy with it

 

[cadaveca]

I am pretty sure that only the boards with 4 PCIe slots have the NF200...but mixing NF200 with PCIe 3.0 doesn't make any sense to me either. As far as I know NF200 is PCIe 2.0, not even 2.1, so I am not sure how it can offer PCIe 3.0 AND NF200 at the same time. Weird.

That said, looking at the images of the board in question, I can see the PLX chip just to the left of the PCH cooler.


Meh, AsRock doesn't send me products...and i hold the opinion that if an OEM doesn't provide me with samples, it's because there is something wrong with the product that my review style and organization may expose. So i'll jsut tel lyou to ignore them, and move on.

 

[Jegergrim]

I am pretty sure that only the boards with 4 PCIe slots have the NF200...but mixing NF200 with PCIe 3.0 doesn't make any sense to me either. As far as I know NF200 is PCIe 2.0, not even 2.1, so I am not sure how it can offer PCIe 3.0 AND NF200 at the same time. Weird.

That said, looking at the images of the board in question, I can see the PLX chip just to the left of the PCH cooler.


Meh, AsRock doesn't send me products...and i hold the opinion that if an OEM doesn't provide me with samples, it's because there is something wrong with the product that my review style and organization may expose. So i'll jsut tel lyou to ignore them, and move on.

Cheers, the info was helpful, and I totally agree with the above

 

[15th Warlock]

Do you know if one should refraint from NF200 chip on motherboards if ones goal is to have PCI-E 3.0 capeability? I won't be running SLI/CF, but unaware whether the Asrock Extreme3 Gen3 Mobo uses this chip, and I have been reading that any board with this chip willl not be Gen 3 capeable... Will only be doing light overclocking, so I feel like the MSI/Fatality might be abit overkill (primarily gaming)

Well, video cards are hardly bandwidth limited at PCI-E 8x, and 16x is plenty enough for even the fastest current and possibly upcoming cards, Gen 3 is IMHO, as of this moment, mostly a marketing gimmick, by the time you purchase a video card that truly saturates current PCI-E 2.0 bandwidth, chances are you'll most likely have upgraded your board due to CPU, RAM or other components that may have had become bigger bottlenecks than available PCI-E bandwidth by then.

You have to see other advantages of having an NF200 on current socket 1155 systems, one of them being the ability to go beyond the limited available 16x lanes, sure SLI and Crossfire configurations at 8x have been extensively tested to be barely bandwidth limited when compared to 16x dual card configurations, but once you start adding more PCI-E devices that share the available lanes like sound cards, SATA controllers, PCI-E SSDs or even a third video card you'll run into undesirable problems, like having one video card running at 8x and the other at 4x, greatly impacting your system performance.

That's the beauty of the NF200 or other solutions like PLX, by allowing more PCIe lanes while adding neglegible latency, you can run multiple GPU systems without the fear of limiting available PCI-E lanes to your add on cards, take my system for example, I'm efectively running my cards at PCI-E 8x16x16x, with performance that's at least on par to X58 systems with more available PCI-E lanes.

To me that's way more important than Gen 3 availabilty, as I said before, by the time you truly need it, chances are you will have already replaced your board, CPU and other components to something that won't bottleneck your shiny new PCI-E 3.0 video cards

That's my two cents.

 

[cadaveca]

NF200 doesn't "add" a thing to PCIe.


NF200 is a "mutliplexer", meaning, it takes the signal from seperate cources, and mixes them together in a format that is understandable by a single receiver.


So, it takes two x16 slots, and muxes the data into a single x16 connection. This adds latency.

The affect of PCIe bandwidth to multiple cards running concurrently is NOT the same as what W1zz tested in his PCIe bandwidth testing. Tests using multiple cards shows that in some apps, switching down to a PCIe x4 link for one card, with a X16 link for the other, can end up with a loss of 50% performance compared to a config with x8/x8. Quoting info from singlecard tests for how PCIe bandwidth affects multiple GPU configs is not exactly the most prudent method, as when you run a multicard config, communication between cards also happens on the PCIe bus, adding to the traffic on the PCIe bus(called peer-to-peer), which just isn't present in a singlecard config. I can very easily setup a rig to show this..I do ahve many boards onhand.


Secondly, NF200 WILL BREAK PCIe 3.0 functionality. All points within a PCie 3.0 link need to meet certain requirements, which the NF200 does not meet.

Simply take a look at Gigabyte's "response" to MSI's claims about PCIe 3.0 functionality on Gigabyte products...

 

[Jegergrim]

That is a good analysis, but I have also though alot about this, the thing is I'll be going for an Ivy bridge + GTX 6xx/Radeon 79xx, and I never intend to run SLI or CF, and never will have the need for NF200, and since NF200 possible stricts with PCI-E 3.0, I prefer the Gen3 readiness, perhaps the first generation of new cards won't saturate PCI-E 2.0, but that doesn't matter, I'd like to leave the option open for a longer duration also there are some improvements on pci-e 3.0 which I like e.g. the efficiency, and it's said the new cards will infact be PCI-E 3.0 compatible, so my reasoning is, why not just get the board which will be able to run the card with PCI-E 3.0... Another thing to add is that I cannot wait till 2012 with building the rig, so I'll start by building this year, and upgrade to ivy bridge and one of the new GPU's (will be using an old GTX 260 untill then, possibly 4850) and ofcourse sell of the 2500k which I will be buying to hold me untill 2012

 

[15th Warlock]

NF200 doesn't "add" a thing to PCIe.


NF200 is a "mutliplexer", meaning, it takes the signal from seperate cources, and mixes them together in a format that is understandable by a single receiver.


So, it takes two x16 slots, and muxes the data into a single x16 connection. This adds latency.

The affect of PCIe bandwidth to multiple cards running concurrently is NOT the same as what W1zz tested in his PCIe bandwidth testing. Tests using multiple cards shows that in some apps, switching down to a PCIe x4 link for one card, with a X16 link for the other, can end up with a loss of 50% performance compared to a config with x8/x8. Quote info from singlecard tests for how PCIe bandwitdh affects multiple PU configs is not exactly the most prudent method, as when you run a multicard config, communication between cards also happens on the PCIe bus, adding to the traffic on the PCIe bus(called peer-to-peer), which just isn't present in a singlecard config.


Secondly, NF200 WILL BREAK PCIe 3.0 functionality. All points within a PCie 3.0 link need to meet certain requirements, which the NF200 does not meet.

Simply take a look at Gigabyte's "response" to MSI's claims about PCIe 3.0 functionality on Gigabyte products...

Yes I think that's pretty clear the NF200 doesn't "add" more PCI-E lanes, as I said it "allows" more PCI-E devices to be used at one time without fear of saturating your available lanes.

I fully agree with you it's not an elegant solution, nevertheless it's an efficient and effective solution, and I can personally vouch for it but don't take my word for it, here's what Tom's has to say about pairing an NF200 to a current 1155 board:

While the NF200 doesn’t completely solve the dearth of PCIe lanes available on LGA 1155 platforms, its ability to send identical data to multiple cards makes it perfect for SLI and CrossFire. That benefit, when combined with the Sandy Bridge processor’s superior performance and overclocking capabilities, slams the lid on the coffin for X58 gaming. Anyone who needs the added flexibility of X58 to host other devices, such as high-end drive controllers or six-core processors in a workstation environment, must bow to the gaming superiority of NF200-equiped Sandy Bridge motherboards like Asus' P8P67 WS Revolution.

P67, X58, And NF200: The Best Platform For CrossFire And SLI

There's some advantages to adding an NF200 to a board after all As for Gen 3 compatibility, I shared my thoughts on it in my previous post

Sorry it took me so long to reply, but linking webpages on my IPhone is way harder than I expected

 

[15th Warlock]

That is a good analysis, but I have also though alot about this, the thing is I'll be going for an Ivy bridge + GTX 6xx/Radeon 79xx, and I never intend to run SLI or CF, and never will have the need for NF200, and since NF200 possible stricts with PCI-E 3.0, I prefer the Gen3 readiness, perhaps the first generation of new cards won't saturate PCI-E 2.0, but that doesn't matter, I'd like to leave the option open for a longer duration also there are some improvements on pci-e 3.0 which I like e.g. the efficiency, and it's said the new cards will infact be PCI-E 3.0 compatible, so my reasoning is, why not just get the board which will be able to run the card with PCI-E 3.0... Another thing to add is that I cannot wait till 2012 with building the rig, so I'll start by building this year, and upgrade to ivy bridge and one of the new GPU's (will be using an old GTX 260 untill then, possibly 4850) and ofcourse sell of the 2500k which I will be buying to hold me untill 2012

If you don't intend to go SLI or Crossfire then you possibly don't need a board with an NF200, it'll probably just add to the cost of the board, as for PCI-E 3.0, to me it's like AGP 4x vs 8x all over again the first 8x cards performed the same as the 4x cards, and by the time cards that saturated AGP 8x reached the market, ppl were already moving to PCI-E boards

But still, that's just my personal opinion if you already decided on that topic, I'm not trying to convince you otherwise, I just wanted you to have another point of view on the usefulness of the NF200

I've gotta go, I have a patient already, but it's been nice discussing this with you guys

BTW: sorry I had to post twice to reply, I know it's rude, but editing my previous post would've taken forever on my phone

 

[cadaveca]

Tom's Hardware was sold and bought by a marketing firm long ago. They are in the business of providing MARKETING, not reality.


Case and point, from that article:

That benefit, when combined with the Sandy Bridge processor’s superior performance and overclocking capabilities

Seems the NF200 means nothing at all, and they hid in there the truth... Once you compare P67 with nf200, and without, it makes that conclusion have a far differnt meaning...they are simply saying that even with a "lack" of PCIe bandwidth, P67 with NF200 is still faster than X58. But P67 WITHOUT NF200 is FASTER than with it. Sure, for triple cards, you have no choice but to either use NF200, go X58, or wait for LGA2011. For me, the only real option is waiting for LGA2011.


That said, many other sites have tested NF200 on P67/Z68, and found that NF200 is only truly "better" when CPU limitations come into play..ie, games that have FPS in triple-digits, or are poorly coded on the CPU side, so don't take my word for it...take a look at other sites that ahve looked at this situation directly.


And let me say this..the compare of X58 vs P67 wit hNF200 is stupid, plain and simple. Accurate compares, with P67 @ x8/x8, vs P67 with NF200 x16/x16, show that more often than not, NF200 is a performance degrading chip.

I mean, it's no big dela to me what someone buys, but, as a reviewer, I do have to make sure that all relevant info is conveyed effectively. I did mention that NF200 is fine for GPU compute farms. But for gaming...most gamers HATE added latency, with the extreme end of "pro" players usually running with low in-game details, even.

So, no, I cannot, and will not EVER recommend a board wit hNF200 to a gamer. Sure it works..and as I mentioned..that shows more about the SOFTWARE side of NF200 than it does the hardware. I mean, nVidia is a software company that also sells hardware, and not a hardware company that also sell software, after all.

As for the whole PCIe bandwidth thing...[H] did a quick article about GTX480 SLI in x16/x16 vs x4/x4. You should take a look, not at the numbers...but at the framerate graphs, and the conclusion. Keep in mind, I'm an eyefintiy gamer when you read it.

 

[Jegergrim]

If you don't intend to go SLI or Crossfire then you possibly don't need a board with an NF200, it'll probably just add to the cost of the board, as for PCI-E 3.0, to me it's like AGP 4x vs 8x all over again the first 8x cards performed the same as the 4x cards, and by the time cards that saturated AGP 8x reached the market, ppl were already moving to PCI-E boards

But still, that's just my personal opinion if you already decided on that topic, I'm not trying to convince you otherwise, I just wanted you to have another point of view on the usefulness of the NF200

I've gotta go, I have a patient already, but it's been nice discussing this with you guys

BTW: sorry I had to post twice to reply, I know it's rude, but editing my previous post would've taken forever on my phone

Always appreciated to see different point of views As it is right now, I might aswell get the PCI-E 3.0 than not get it even if it means I'll never really get to saturate it well enough, but since the price differences are minimal it's fully justified by me, and it would add to the futureproof of the board and I would really like it for the upcomming GPU's.

 

[springs113]

The VRM is a bit different too.



That's not an easy question to answer. I always favor AMD cards, but nVidia has some good ones too. It all depends on how much you want to spend....most users here will recommend a 6950, based on past threads.

I know the vrm is diff but doesn't warrant a 40 dollar increase....and in regards to the gpu I'm max'n at 350

 

[kciaccio]

I am going with this one for my build.

ASUS P8P67 DELUXE (REV 3.0) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SAT...