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I would (as always) wait for version 2 of that board (it sounds brand spanking new)...but I have to wonder what you are doing that needs 2 graphics cards...8x is more than enough for most needs and I'm pretty sure there have been 2 slot 8x boards around for quite some time.
Maybe you could post a FRED chart about it? :)
New Renter
2014 Aug 30, 2:14am
Wow, do you really have that much free time to play games?
if you do this site may help you in your choice of graphics cards:
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net
I upgraded my older system a few weeks ago and selected a GeForce 750 TI based on the bang for the buck chart. I steered clear of ATI as their cards seem to have much greater power requirements and reports of loud cooling fans. So far my card has been dead quiet and goes great with my 120 hz overclocked single 2560x1440 korean knockoff monitor.
I also put in a 250 gb Kingston SSD main drive along with a SATA 3 riser card. while the machine boots a LOT faster and is smoother to drive my benchmarks don't show much of a gain over a spinning drive. I did change the bios from IDE to AHCI with no difference. It may be that I am still on XP, or my older (2010) MB / I5 CPU. Upgrading those will be a harder sell though, especially since my rig is running well.
Bellingham Bill
2014 Aug 30, 2:19am
yeah, always wait 5-6 months into hardware product cycles . . .
8x PCIe 3.0 is perfectly fine but you can't do 8x/8x SLI and still have 4x to the SSD on current mainstream motherboards.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1037?vs=1064
compares 770 to 770 SLI showing you get a good speed bump going SLI
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1064?vs=1072
compares 770 SLI to 780 Ti (a card nearly 2X the cost of the 770)
so one strategy would be adding another 770 when it's no longer performant on it own, taking advantage of:
(hmm, the trend of that chart is worrying!)
Bellingham Bill
2014 Aug 30, 2:20am
Wow, do you really have that much free time to play games?
I lead a unified existence
Still on a Conroe Win7 box with a 5770 so it's about time to upgrade . . .
PCs have evolved a bit since 2008, the most significant advance by far has been SSDs.
Progress has been ridiculously slow, but at least Apple was an early adopter of PCIe-attached fixed storage with last year's Mac Pro and portable offerings with Samsung flash memory on cards that closely resembled the NGFF aka M.2 format.
ASRock is first out of the gate with PCIe 3.0 4X connectivity to their M.2 flash, calling it Ultra M.2. Benchmarking bears out the "Ultra" moniker:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8045/asrock-z97-extreme6-review-ultra-m2-x4-tested-with-xp941/11
Flash storage has been something of a joke in the PC space, with SATA, mSATA, and the horrible SATAe connection standards, but I think ASRock's got the right idea here -- stop farting around with cables and just connect flash storage to the CPU directly.
The cool thing is that M.2 attaches on the motherboard horizontally, hiding under the 2-slot graphics card basically.
Problem with this direct PCIe connectivity though is that Intel is stingy on the available bandwidth to the CPU, at least on the mainstream LGA1050 platform, with only 16 PCIe Gen 3 lanes to the CPU (which one GPU would prefer having to itself).
There's no hit dropping from PCIe 3.0 16x to 8x, but if you want two graphics cards and "Ultra" M.2, you're going to be stuck with a 8x / 4x connections for the GPUs, and nVidia doesn't even allow that, so SLI with "Ultra" M.2 is a no-go for the current mainstream.
Next year's "Skylake" architecture will have 20 PCIe lanes, and other improvements, so it will be a pretty good option for the mainstream.
But for now, x99 and its 2011-pin socket solves that with 40 Gen 3 lanes to the CPU, so each card in a dual-GPU setup can get 16x and still leave 4x for the Ultra M.2 slot.
Anyhoo, looking at the new x99 motherboards, this one:
caught my eye. One thing I hate is too many goddamn slots junking up the board, and this one is so nice with all the space between slots.
So with the upcoming next rev of GPUs:
http://wccftech.com/nvidia-rumored-launch-geforce-gtx-980-geforce-gtx-970-maxwell-gpus-september-skips-800-series-branding/
and Windows 9:
http://winsupersite.com/windows/coming-soon-threshold-public-preview
As for the CPU, I think the Haswell-E Xeons will be a pretty good deal. One thing that's retarded is getting a CPU with so much GPU junk on the die when you've already got a $400+ GPU doing all the graphics work.
X99 doesn't have this problem since they don't have Intel's integrated graphics.
The platform also supports ECC RAM, so that's a good benefit too. Intel's releasing V3 of their Xeons, and the E5-1620 looks to be a solid performer.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116982
is the V2 (Ivy Bridge-E), for $300. Not bad!
things are looking pretty good for building a new box early next year . . .