PLX/NF200 Feedback

[saaya]

EVGA and Asus are using NF200 chips to double the pciE lanes, well actually they remain the same, but the lanes can be shared more efficiently between more devices... at least in theory, in some scenarios it doesnt help or even makes things worse.
Asus even went for a dual nf200 implementation now and launched an X58 board with 2 nf200 chips!
How much is this worth it to you?
How much are you willing to spend extra on a board to have extra pciE slots?

Please think of how much you spent for your last board, and then add some to it and tell me how much would be too much and youd go for another version of that board without PLX/NF200.

Thanks!

[warlove3]

if it could run 4x16 full bandwidth i think that another extra 30-50$ is worth it, since it eliminate the bottlenecks for Quad CF/SLi

[saaya]

well for that you would need 2 nf200 or plx chips actually, since every of those chips can only connect to 2 16x devices and make them share one 16x lane input link.
And looking at results from several sources it seems that nf200 is slowing down sli 1-3% instead of speeding it up... interestingly xfire seems to be slightly faster with nf200 hahah but that could as well be caused by different tweaking of the bios or the hardware of different boards, since there is no board that has a version with and a version without nf200 its hard to draw direct conclusions.

using an nf200 or plx on x58 will mean instead of 16/16 you can double one of the 16 links and get 16/16/16.
to get 16/16/16/16 you would need two chips.

[CmB]

I'd like it for my benching boards but I'd have to weigh it against hydra. Pick whichever is the better implementation. In my opinion good slot placement is more of an issue, as I don't plan to run anymore than vid cards.

--Chris

PS I'm really glad you and Foxconn is taking the time to gather enthusiast data rather than guess what we want.

[zanzabar]

i wouldent want an nf200 but plx would be nice

[slim142]

Maybe $10, but since Im ok with SLI and have no plans for Tri-SLI, I guess Im ok if it doesnt have the nf200. My max would be $20, but thats if the board proves to be worth it and to not get too hot.

[saaya]

PS I'm really glad you and Foxconn is taking the time to gather enthusiast data rather than guess what we want.

im glad you guys are voting and giving me some feedback
i hope more people will vote in these threads in the coming days, so far its been only a dozen or two dozen people... but the numbers are already very reliable... in my experience with forum polls the first 10 votes usually indicate the final result already unless something changes all of a sudden

the problem is positioning, on P45 we used PLX and a beefy digital pwm etc, and it essentially kicked up the price too much...

we have FlamingBlade at sub 200$, if we put too many features on our P55 board it will end up in the same price category

so yeah, p55 with a plx for example would be nice, but would it make sense? wouldnt a cheap X58 board be the same or better?

[warlove3]

erm, if follow the nf200/PLX chip price, i would pay the cost for it.....if it can benefit users why not?, 16/16/16/16 is always good if added with the Hydra

[saaya]

well thats the question, can users really benefit from it?
thats up to you guys... the only real boost is with quad sli and quad xfire with 4 cards or 2 dualcards.
the more notable benefit for most users will rather be the added pciE slots.
Then again that depends on how many add in cards people use andplan to use...

[MpG]

How about a poll option for "Don't want the chip AT ALL"? Personally, I could do without the extra source of potential latency, free or not. And even the PLX's still need a heatsink of some sort on them.

[saaya]

doh! good point, i forgot to add an option for dont want it
polls cant be edited... meh
well so i wont know how many of you want a pciE bridge chip, but i can know how much those of you who DO, would be willing to pay for it...
at least something

[DaKon]

Absolutly NO for me on this one. All the chip does is 3 things: adds latency; adds heat; adds nvidias horrible reliability with chips