Will there be enough PCIe lanes on 6700k?

[DrParanoia]

Hi everyone!

 

So I am planning on doing a build and i wanted to go for 5820k (since i like to do some video editing, 3D work, etc.), but one of the main reasons I am getting this PC is for games.

 

After looking around, I found out that 6700k actually performs quite a bit better for modern games. This video shows ~20fps gain in some games 

But there is one thing that bothers me:

Setup 1: GTX 980 Ti (16x), Creative Labs ZXR sound card (4x from the chipset?)

Setup 2: 2x GTX 980 Ti (8x each), Creative Labs ZXR sound card (still the same 4x from the chipset?).

 

What worries me - is 8x enough for the Ti cards? Won't it get even worse if Pascal comes out?

 

So, any advice you can give me? Should I go for the 6700k and then just upgrade for a newer processor on the same platform when it becomes available? Thanks in advance!

[Imakuni]

1 minute ago, DrParanoia said:

Hi everyone!

 

So I am planning on doing a build and i wanted to go for 5820k (since i like to do some video editing, 3D work, etc.), but one of the main reasons I am getting this PC is for games.

 

After looking around, I found out that 6700k actually performs quite a bit better for modern games. This video shows ~20fps gain in some games 

But there is one thing that bothers me:

Setup 1: GTX 980 Ti (16x), Creative Labs ZXR sound card (4x from the chipset?)

Setup 2: 2x GTX 980 Ti (8x each), Creative Labs ZXR sound card (still the same 4x from the chipset?).

 

What worries me - is 8x enough for the Ti cards? Won't it get even worse if Pascal comes out?

 

So, any advice you can give me? Should I go for the 6700k and then just upgrade for a newer processor on the same platform when it becomes available? Thanks in advance!

8x is plenty for a 980ti. And most likely will be plenty for Pascal as well. Don't worry about it.

[Snooli]

4x gen2 is plenty for a 980ti/FuryX. You are talking about 8x gen3, which is about 16xgen2. You have absolutely no reason to worry.

Also, what are you editing in? Premiere has been known for using only 4 cores.

Also why are you buying an internal audio card? External DAC AMPs (suck as Mayflowers Objetctive2) do perfom way better than internal cards.

[DioOmicida]

Dual 8x +4x is usually what you find on anything that isn't an extremely high tier MB.
Most reads suggest users hardly see a difference in running 8x rather than 16x.

[DrParanoia]

Thanks for you answers! By the way, how can i know if a given bandwidth is enough? Are there any specs for bandwidth requirements for GPUs?

[DioOmicida]

Just now, DrParanoia said:

Thanks for you answers! By the way, how can i know if a given bandwidth is enough? Are there any specs for bandwidth requirements for GPUs?

I think sli Nvidia cards wont run under 8x while AMD Crossfire can run in 4x.

[Snooli]

Just now, DioOmicida said:

I think sli Nvidia cards wont run under 8x while AMD Crossfire can run in 4x.

Which is actually another nVidia nonsense... They run absolutely fine gen2x8 but can't run gen3x4 (same bandwith) because somebody in nVidia's marketing said so.

[Moonzy]

2 minutes ago, DrParanoia said:

Thanks for you answers! By the way, how can i know if a given bandwidth is enough? Are there any specs for bandwidth requirements for GPUs?

there is a table somewhere on the internet comparing pcie lanes and fps in games

and iirc, the 980ti performed well until it dropped to 4x pcie 2.0 or something

 

bottom line is, for gaming, pcie lanes doesnt matter much to a gpu

for compute tasks, MAYBE it matters

[Moonzy]

1 minute ago, Snooli said:

Which is actually another nVidia nonsense... They run absolutely fine gen2x8 but can't run gen3x4 (same bandwith) because somebody in nVidia's marketing said so.

its a limit imposed by nvidia instead of an actual hardware bottleneck AFAIK, that their cards have to have 8x connection electrically (regardless of pcie gen) to SLI

[Snooli]

Just now, Moonzy said:

bottom line is, for gaming, pcie lanes doesnt matter much to a gpu

for compute tasks, MAYBE it matters

Fun fact! Even less, all BTC mining rigs have x1 extenders to save on PCIe lanes and to get as many GPUs as possible.

[DioOmicida]

2 minutes ago, Snooli said:

Which is actually another nVidia nonsense... They run absolutely fine gen2x8 but can't run gen3x4 (same bandwith) because somebody in nVidia's marketing said so.

So nvidia cards can run in 8x and not 4x when sli?

[Moonzy]

Just now, Snooli said:

Fun fact! Even less, all BTC mining rigs have x1 extenders to save on PCIe lanes and to get as many GPUs as possible.

BTC mining only requires to send minimal amount of data to the gpu for compute

there might be tasks out there that require high bandwidth between the gpu and cpu, i'll never know, thats why i stated that

[Snooli]

19 minutes ago, DrParanoia said:

-snip-

But there is one thing that bothers me:

Setup 1: GTX 980 Ti (16x), Creative Labs ZXR sound card (4x from the chipset?)

Setup 2: 2x GTX 980 Ti (8x each), Creative Labs ZXR sound card (still the same 4x from the chipset?).

-snip-

Why an internal audio card? Isn't an objective2 DAC AMP cheaper?

[DrParanoia]

Well if you think about it, the game does need to send textures/date to the GPU only once for caching. After that it's basically draw calls, so it makes sense, that PCIe requirements are low for gaming. By the way, found that benchmark for PCIe lanes and FPS, looks like I have nothing to worry about! Thanks everyone! https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Impact-of-PCI-E-Speed-on-Gaming-Performance-518/

[Trey222]

Also take the gaming benchmarks with a grain of salt because neither of those CPUs are overclocked and the 6700k comes with a much higher stock clock than the 5820K but when overclocked the gap pretty much goes away. 

[DrParanoia]

1 minute ago, Trey222 said:

Also take the gaming benchmarks with a grain of salt because neither of those CPUs are overclocked and the 6700k comes with a much higher stock clock than the 5820K but when overclocked the gap pretty much goes away. 

Well that's what I thought too, but there is a video that shows almost no fps performance gain on overclocked 5820k compared to stock speed. So I think that 6700k wins thanks to more operations per clock, or I am wrong?