PCI-E 16x advantage over 8x (electircal) ?

[Frederik Sulser]

Hi everybody

I'm planning on buying an EPIC (hope to raise the money about at the time when it's possible to buy one for a non RED owner) - and currently I have to change my workstation. As I want to put a RED Rocket card into the workstation when I buy the EPIC, I'm wondering wheter having the RED Rocket in a true 16x (electrical) slot brings any advantages over a 16x slot with only 8x electrical lanes. Because in the Specs it says, that the RED Rocket needs at least 8x electrical lanes - that's why I'm wondering if 16x brings more bandwidth - or if the speed is the same so I can use that slot for a second graphics card or something....

And if we're at it: For working with RED files: anything wrong with a Z800, 2x6core, 2.66, 12GB RAM, Quadro FX 3800 ?
(These are the certified specs I need to have my AVID MC 5 Mojo DX in combo with my 16 TB Rocket RAID running properly)

Thanks for your answers

Frederik

 

[Paul Steinberg]

I can't offer any help but would just like to bump this topic as I'll soon be installing a Rocket card into my PC and would be interested in knowing any performance difference between running it in x8 or x16 mode.

 

[Dustin Cross]

So far as I know, the Rocket is only an x8 card and will only use 8 PCIe v1.1 lanes. It will work just fine in an x16 slot, but not better than a proper x8 slot.


Dusty

 

[Eric Santiago]

4X?

4X?

There's even talks that this card will run on 4X.
Im toying with that spec due to overcrowded Mac Pro

 

[Stephen Gentle]

There's even talks that this card will run on 4X.
Im toying with that spec due to overcrowded Mac Pro

People have had some success with port expanders out the ExpressCard slot in Macbook Pros - which have a similar bandwidth as a 1x slot.

I think that's enough for 1080p output but I don't think that you'd get much acceleration (because the bandwidth is just not there).

See http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=35576, http://www.maxxdigital.com/mobile-rocket-red-rocket.html

 

[Frederik Sulser]

Hi everbody

Thanks for the answers, and sorry for my late reply. I'm currently moving (and as I work at home, it means moving the office and everything else - so I was without internet for a couple of days...)

Ok then a 8x port is certainly enough - that is good to know

regards

Frederik