Hey guys Im after some solid advice on finding myself a solid yet not wallet rippingly expensive Motherboard, now because of the requirements that i've set for my new build detailed below i seem to be struggleing to find what im after. Im looking to get 2 GTS 450's into SLI so good speed PCI-E slots are a must, it has to be a Core I5 Mobo. I've been looking at the Asus P7p55D Pro comes in nicely below the £140 limit i'd set. but all the others i can find run one of the PCI-E slots at 4x which is going to cripple the 2nd card. So if u guys know of any others your advice would be much appricated.
Which is what i thought too, then i made the mistake of picking up a copy of PC format who were doing some SLI/Crossfire reviews this month (hence i picked it up) Long story short their tests (which can be subjective to differing equipment) produced results that for DX11 gaming at 1680x1050 a pair of GTS 450's outperformed a single 460 playing games like Just cause 2 and Heaven 2.0 on max settings. So they did a good job of muddying the waters......
The kicker, of course, is you'll pay more for 2 450s than a single 460, and use a fair chunk more power in the process. And probably not notice TOO much of a difference between the 2. You could always grab a second 460 later on if you felt the need! It's also worth noting that x4/x4 SLI doesn't make too much of a difference, even with GTX480s in those slots.
At that resolution I'd say the SLI 450's will provide you with better performance and flexibility overall, for example Arkham Asylum works better when you dedicate a card to physx. On the down side you may have to occasionally wait for Nvidia to provide drivers with SLI profiles and you'll need more power to run them. I'm still fairly sure that 2 8x PCIe slots is more than enough for current games.
That depends on how much you like PhysX. I managed to complete the entire game with a smooth, happy experience, intriguing twists and turns, some mad boss fights, and a lot of fun, on an ATi card. I didn't feel like I was missing anything out. It felt like "The Way It's Meant To Be Played", without all the fussing that came from fancy cloth movement. Also worth mentioning if you dedicate a card to PhysX, you'll have to either put up with single-card performance for actual graphics, or fiddle about between different games to enable SLI or PhysX. I'm sure someone will be along to disagree with me in a minute, though. Just my opinion.
There were some truly amazing scenes in Arkham with Physx set to high (not talking about cloth sim or dynamic bog roll) but it's not worth buying a new graphics card just for the few games that support it at the moment. I can quite happily play Arkham (and Mafia 2) on full detail with a single card for the graphics and a second just for Physx/Apex with twin 9800gtx+'s, mostly due to the games being developed for consoles too. Metro 2033 is a different matter though, if i want full detail I have compromise with using SLI and CPU Physx. Just Cause on the other hand can run smoothly with all the nvidia added features and SLI enabled. I agree it can be a bit fiddly switching SLI on and off for various games but it's only a minor inconvenience.
Also refer to this: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GTX_480_PCI-Express_Scaling/25.html Their conclusion is on PCI-E 2.0, x8 would lose around 2% speed, whereas at x4 would lose around 8% speed.
