Only thing that i'm interested in is how much only having PCI-E 16x v 1.1 instead of v 2.0 will affect P35 vs P45 comparisons as more powerful GPUs are released. At the moment the only data i've seen has shown +-1fps. It would be nasty if the GT200 and RV770 don't work as well on v 1.1 vs 2.0, but it would make a hell of a lot of people upgrade.

I'm not worried about some Virtualization bug, But then I turn that feature off in the Bios, As I run only 1 OS per PC, So just why would I need It? Cause Intel says We do need It?? Since when???

#7, #8, #11: Thanks! Very insightful, thanks for additionally fleshing out my initial inquiries.

If I do a vid card upgrade, I may *try* Crossfire just for the heck of it, knowing the X4 will not hamper a 3870. Or i may wait another 3 months and get the latest, faster single card solution.

Back on topic:

The latest P45 solutions look like more of the same, a tweak here, a bump there, etc. I have 965 and P35 solutions at home, all run Core2...can't see, other than in the enthusiasts going after the last 3% of perforamance, that P45/X48 really being anything other than the last hurrah before QuickPath.

_ #3
No, it just more bandwidth.
PCI-E 1.1 is 250mb/sec and PCI-E is 500mb/sec

#2: Even the very best cards right now can work close to their full capacity on an X4 lane (bandwidth-wise). I read an article over at Tom's how they artifically limited the PCI-e lanes. I am very interested in this as I purchased a P35 board a while back that was the X16/X4 (even though 2 physical X16 slots) Crossfire setup. The conclusion, which I hope is true, is that you will get adequate bandwidth using PCIe X16/X4 for Crossfire for the foreseeable future, with certain applications like Flight Simulator X a notable exception.

A good analogy is that the 8X AGP ports did not become bandwidth-limited until cards were released in about 2006-2007, even though 8X has been around since about 2000/2001 (trying to glean the year from Wikipedia...)

Experts: Please weigh in, perhaps I'm deluding myself because I really don't want to buy another board so soon...

Ya know, I still find the 'ol P965 to do the trick. It seems the main advantages for new Intel chipsets are just new CPU support but, believe it or not, you can run every CPU out there on many P965 boards. The P35 chipset officially supports everything, even rip-off DDR3 RAM.

P45 doesn't really seem to add much other than the rather unexciting PCIe 2.0.

It will be a long time before a DDR3 motherboard is attractive to me but this P45 board looks very sweet
http://www.nordichardware.com/Articles/?skrivelse=534