Ok so I know completely overkill most likely for pretty much anything, but I see that this is listed to be able to run x16/x16 PCIe3.0. or x8/x8/x8/x8 if you run quad, and so on. That actually makes me happy and was one of the reasons I was lookin at x79 boards because of these options.
I do have a question about the lanes. If I were to run dual gpu's at x16/x16, am I able to use any of the other slots like PCI x1 for additional things?? Or would the cpu not allow it and change the x16/x16 to lower multipliers, like x8/x8? Just trying to understand how the lanes work and if they are all the same or if they are diff.
The 2 additional lines would most likely be disabled in x16/x16.
Due note that PCIe3.0 x8 is equal to PCIe2.0 x16 bandwidth. So If you planned to get an ivy bridge cpu you could probably run x8x/x8/x8/x8 without bottle-necking the video cards.
Note that Ivy Bridge still only has 16 PCIe lanes on the processor itself and then the extra off a PLX bridge. If you really want to run more than two high-bandwidth devices, I'd say stick to Sandy Bridge E and X79 just to minimize the possibility of latency.
Ya that was my question... So Ivy only allows for 16 lanes for gpu's? So even though the WS board shows x16/x16 it would really run at x8/x8 for gpu's, if I am getting this right. Then again if it was possible it would run both cards at x16/x16 I wouldn't be able to use the other lanes because they would disable. So if I wanted dual gpu's, with potential to run a third and potentially a sound card I would need to go with an x79 board instead, because I wouldn't have enough lanes to run all of that even on the ASUS WS board?? Just trying to understand this, and thanks for the reply