[H]ard|OCP wanted to know just what the difference in performance was between a motherboard whose second PCIe slot runs at 8x versus one that can hit the full 16x when it has a second graphics card in it.  Using an MSI X58 Eclipse which is capable of 16x with both slots populated and some tape on the second graphics card to reduce it to 8x they started benchmarking.  As it turns out the difference in performance is minuscule and that paying a large premium for a board capable of dual 16x bandwidth is not really necessary.  See the results for yourself.

“Have you wanted to space your SLI or CFX video cards farther apart on your motherboard to allow for better airflow? Do you have a motherboard that will not support a x16/x16 PCIe configuration? We put x16/x16 and x16/x8 PCIe SLI and CFX configurations head to head and show you what sacrifice there is to be made.”

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