P45 Chipset and Crossfire

[ShadoutDH]

Ordered P45 now, hope it turns out that P45 isnt bottlenecked, if not, guess Ill have to wait for next gen to get more power than a single 4870
Way too many unanswered questions about the Tweaktown article though, I wouldnt take it for the truth just yet, its a shame no other sites have focused more on the issue.

Not like GPU benchmarks are always exact either, just looking at todays 4870X2 previews, different sites show X games not working in CF and others shows it does

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Midaro77
I need two LAN ports and 7 SATA connections, so I'm looking at either:
P45: Asus P5Q-E at $199 (in Australian dollars)
or
X48: Gigabyte GA-X48-DS5 at $305

Where did you find the GA-X48-DS5 for sale? I can't find one anywhere.

 

[Triton67]

"AMD talks about CrossFire PCI-E bandwidth: 8X enough for HD 4800"
Date: 2008-7-15

http://en.hardspell.com/doc/showcont.asp?news_id=3737

-----------

P45 vs P35 and X38 with HD4850 (single and Crossfire) (swedish, with graphs)

http://www.sweclockers.com/art...ow.php?id=6086&page=11

-----------

any more comparisons found ?

 

[twjr]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry

Originally posted by: Midaro77
I need two LAN ports and 7 SATA connections, so I'm looking at either:
P45: Asus P5Q-E at $199 (in Australian dollars)
or
X48: Gigabyte GA-X48-DS5 at $305

Where did you find the GA-X48-DS5 for sale? I can't find one anywhere.

We can get them here in New Zealand too. I just think that they aren't sold in the US.

 

[ShadoutDH]

Originally posted by: Triton67
"AMD talks about CrossFire PCI-E bandwidth: 8X enough for HD 4800"
Date: 2008-7-15
http://en.hardspell.com/doc/showcont.asp?news_id=3737
-----------
P45 vs P35 and X38 with HD4850 (single and Crossfire) (swedish, with graphs)

http://www.sweclockers.com/art...ow.php?id=6086&page=11
-----------
any more comparisons found ?

Interesting.
Although, to be fair, they don't test the crossfire in very high resolution. More tests are really still needed.
Also, they test H4850, not HD4870.

Some of the text below the graphs basically says:
- P35 wouldnt even run Company of Heroes in crossfire.

- The Asus P5Q Deluxe wouldnt work in crossfire CoH either (the game locked up all the time), although other P45 MBs worked fine."
-- Kinda scary, I just ordered one of those :/ --

Conclusion:
We didnt see improvements using X38 over P45 in crossfire, but more testing with more MB's is needed to conclude anything.

 

[ShadoutDH]

http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=761&p=8

New review. Its a bit weird (X38 PCI-E 1.0 ??), only 4850, and they forgot the 2560 resolution too.

 

[fierydemise]

What I'm seeing is the X48 probably has slightly higher performance then the P45 but not by much

 

[Triton67]

those numbers showed there is a bigger gap between x38 and x48 than P45 and X48 !

P45 clearly better choise with 2x HD4850 than X38...while X48 at top with a clear margin (few %)

this does it for me, P45 with 4850 X2 is OK

EDIT ///

Important notes from Legion Hardware review:

"Previously we had found the performance of the Intel X38 chipset to be quite poor, which was surprising as the X48 really only brings 1600MHz FSB support to the table. However after spending hours upon hours testing with the ASUS Maximus Extreme, we were unable to beat the P45 performance with this X38 board. Therefore we ordered the Gigabyte X38T-DQ6 to re-test the X38 chipset, and as it turns out the results that we were receiving on the Maximus Extreme were much lower, as the X38T-DQ6 was able to match our X48 board. "

 

[MyLeftNut]

That legion hardware article didn't turn up quality settings at 1900x1200 though. I think where the pci-e 2.0 x8 gets saturated is with 1900x1200 and above with quality settings turned up on more demanding games.

It looks like P45 should be good for those that don't run ultra high resolutions which are most people.

 

[MyLeftNut]

One thing I'd like to know is if 3ghz would be a cpu bottleneck for 4850CF and these games tested. I have a good feeling that 3ghz isn't enough for CF.

 

[cbn]

Originally posted by: ShadoutDH
http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=761&p=8

New review. Its a bit weird (X38 PCI-E 1.0 ??), only 4850, and they forgot the 2560 resolution too.

I wish they would have tested that @2560x1600 too.