Re: Need advice on which P55 mobo to choose

Scott wrote:
> Was going to go for a P45 but decided to go for P55 instead but can't
> decide on which of these 3 Gigabytes mobo's to get. My biggest concern
> is the number and type of expansion slots.
> For right now I'm only going to have a graphics card installed but I
> want to make sure I'm ready for any future upgrades. I don't plan on
> using SLI or crossfire.
>
> GA-P55-UD3R
> 1 PCIe 2.0 x16
> 1 PCIe x16 (@x4 bandwidth)
> 1 PCIe x1
> 4 PCI
>
> GA-P55-UD5
> 2 PCIe 2.0 x16
> 1 PCIe x16 (@x4 bandwidth)
> 2 PCIe x1
> 2 PCI
>
> GA-P55-UD4P
> 2 PCIe 2.0 x16
> 3 PCIe x1
> 2 PCI
>
What about the UD6?
I am very happy with mine and just the extra memory slots means extra
flexibility which can save you money (Lets you get 4x2 GB now and the
add 2x4 GB later when prices come down rather than later having to get
4x4 GB and discard 4x2 GB).



> Will there ever be anything else besides a graphics card that will use
> PCI x16?
Hard to say for sure. Apart from something very excotic one could
imagine some super fast disc controller to take advantage of the SSD
drives of the future. However something like that is not likely to be
affordable anytime soon. In other words - not really.


> How prevalent is PCI compare to PCIe x1?
>

I'd say PCI is used a lot more but PCIe is growing. Still most people
will never need to use either of thoose. One may use the one PCI for a
hard core gaming sound card but other than that it's not very likely any
slots will be needed - only thing else could be a wireless LAN card.
These motherboards, especially the higher models offer so many build in
connections that most people will not need to add more(load of USB,
SATA, Firewire...).

Kind regards
Bruno