Quoted:
PCI Express is always faster and more efficient than any legacy slot.

Video cards are usually X8 or 16 and having at least two of them (with SLI/Crossfire support) allows you to drop in a pair
of video cards for superb performance in gaming.

Less demanding cards such as sound cards only need X1 slots so it's good to have an X1 slot available.


There wouldn't be much of a reason to load up the mobo with a large number of X8 slots as this is something that
very few people would ever use.


I personally could not imagine  a need for more than four X8 slots (quad SLI rig!) plus two X1 slots (Sound card and a spare,
probably a MIDI card) and even that is an overkill solution.


Even the batshit crazy, super overkill,  EVGA SR2 board isn't quite right because it would be BETTER if some of those PCI-E X16 slots
should be X1s instead.

http://images.bit-tech.net/content_images/2010/01/evga-w555-dual-xeon-motherboard/topdown.jpg


This board is based on the Intel S5520 server motherboard,  with more PCI-E full width slots added plus a few other goodies like the POST code readout.

I use an S5520 in my work PC.   Dual quad core xeons and 24 GB of RAM with over 4 TB of storage makes it quite a brute for business applications,
but I would have to upgrade the power supply for major video card installation.




CJ