Thinking about Upgrading

[Area 66]

My main concern is that inserting a Sound Card in slot 4 might force slot 1 to work at 1x mode, which is not enough bandwidth for a Quad Gigabit NIC.

Hiviz already told you to go x79. You reply to him that bla bla bla the z77 will fit your need as the z77 8 pci-e 2.0 slot
I then ask you if the chipset as slot, this was humor .



SO insted of play I want to know but I know better than you , why you don't start first by telling us what are you gone do with 5 nics ? ( Intel 4 + onboard ) and 2 GPU, this make no sense. The only time you need 5 nics , it's on server like when you want to use fail over clustering. And you don't need 2 GPU on such servers.
Tell us what you gone do with this PC, and we gone be able to help. FOr me it'S simple you are confusing slot and lanes, and this probably for nothing.

[billyray520]

The Maximus V Formula manual is available on line and answers this question concisely under "explansion slots." What more could an owner add?

[Area 66]

The Maximus V Formula manual is available on line and answers this question concisely under "explansion slots." What more could an owner add?

..the OP already copy and paste a pic from the manual, so he already have one. We need to know what he will use the PC for, trust me, I see this kind of thing before where peoples read to much to resolve something simple. When we will now the need, we gone have the solution

[SeeThruHead]

Doesn't matter what I want to use it for. I want to know some simple information about a specific board and no one is interested in helping.

Moderator says go for a different platform. When intel spec sheet clearly states this platform has enough PCIE Lanes for my use.
I just want to know how those PCIE lanes are implemented on the board so I can tell if it will be compatible.

I need to know if I can run 2x GFX card at 8x PCIE 3.0. In addition Quad nic in slot one, and Sound card in a 1x slot.

The z77 chipset can support this, but every manufacturer uses PCIE lanes differently and this varies from board to board. It has no mention in the manual, so I come here for some clarification and found only people judging me. Very helpful community? I think not.
I am not the only one to be interested in this information either. Here is another example of someone needing this information, maybe he can relay the question better than I: http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=...postcount=1264

It seems like the only way for me to test this is to buy the board myself. You can rest assured that after I do test it I will come back to this forum and post this information for the benefit of the community...

[SeeThruHead]

The Maximus V Formula manual is available on line and answers this question concisely under "explansion slots." What more could an owner add?

The manual makes no mention of how PCIE 2.0 Bandwidth is shared between between slots 1,3,4 and 6. It only lists PCIE bandwidth modes of slot 2,5,7.

[Area 66]

Doesn't matter what I want to use it for.

You can rest assured that after I do test it I will come back to this forum and post this information for the benefit of the community...

I know already the results, It's very simple.

the 3 RED slot are manage by the CPU, and as 16 lanes
the black slot are manage by the Z77 and as 8 lanes and 5 GB/S output

your NIC will use 2.5 GB/s , so if you place it on the slot 1 it will take half of the bandwidth of the Z77 PIC-E 2.0 8 lanes Chipset.

Now if you want talk a little be more on thins, please be more friendly and reply to my question " what it will be use for " because we are here to exchange not just to provide information, it's not only 1 way, and I have my reason to ask, because for me this PC will not be use properly with this NIC and 2 x GPU. You see you gone have 2.5 GB/s of NIC output, I'm very interested to know if your Storage can provide. This is not a Servers board.

[SeeThruHead]

Thank you very much for the clear response. The quad port NIC will be connected to a switch dedicated to SAN network. My san will max out a quad port NIC and I wish to be able to transfer files back and forth between my PC and Server very quickly. When I am not doing that I will be using the PC for gaming.

Now I'm curious, where is the bandwidth for the ASMEDIA controllers supplied from? It seems to me like the PLX chip must be engaged to supply them bandwidth even if only 2 GFX cards are installed. Or am I wrong about that? Because the Maximus V extreme can Supply two GFX with Native PCIE lanes bypassing the PLX chip.

When it comes down to it the ASMEDAI controllers will be disabled in the BIOS. Since I am only using 2 SSD and no maybe 1 USB 3.0 Device. (Other storage will be delivered via iSCSI

[Area 66]

What you want to do is call trunked (bonded) or for Intel a teamed connection. For work you will use Load Balancing and can only work on Layer 3 , so a simple non managed switch will not work.

If you already commit to purchase a $ 300 + on a Intel 4 nic + a managed switch ( you will need one for what you want to do ) , why not simply go 10Gigabit fiber between the server and the PC ? It will cost about the same if not less

See it's why I ask what you gone do with the NIC

[SeeThruHead]

I was planning to use IEEE 802.3ad with a smart switch (Layer 2) that has IEEE 802.3ad. That can be bought for under under 350 altogether from ebay or craigslist. The server will also have a quad port nic. Am i wrong in thinking this will increase transfer speed to the server? Party of thinks that it will only increase bandwidth when transferring to two destination IP's.

EDIT: Maybe a direct connection from the PC to the server with 10GBe NICs and a crossover cable would be better. But I will be buying a managed switch regardless, so I was hoping to use that.

[Area 66]

The speed will also be limited by the storage disks. What are you using for storage ?