"With only sixteen PCIe 3.0 lanes available on a Z77 motherboard paired with an Ivy Bridge CPU, when we get to three or four-way GPU solutions these GPUs are itching to get more bandwidth. The Z77 specification limits us to three GPUs anyway, at x8/x4/x4. For some extra cost on the motherboard, we can add in a PLX PEX 8747 chip that effectively increases our PCIe 3.0 lane count, giving 32 PCIe 3.0 lanes overall. Today we discuss this technology, and look at four motherboards on sale today that utilize this PLX chip - the Gigabyte G1.Sniper 3, the ASRock Z77 Extreme9, the ECS Z77H2-AX and the EVGA Z77 FTW..." | Read More