macrohard

my reply below, but first, does anyone know how to set it to x8x8x8x8x8 not x16x0x0x16x8 bios seems to be able to set slot speeds individually ???? I looked into it further. perhaps long ago there was something called a PEG slot, which means a pcie slot which had a direct connection to the cpu, not the northbridge, so it was fast for video. I think on this motherboard, socket 2066, all the slots are like that perhaps except the x1 which is pcie2.0; on some of the lower quality motherboards, they would occasionally omit some of the functionality of the pcie STANDARD, so only video cards were recommended for those slots. They went on to say that this was around the time of pcie ver2.0 (which is on my old motherboard); by the time of pcie3.0 this was mostly (entirely?) gone; what you supposedly have to look for is "FULL implementation of the pcie standard"; supposedly asus was very reliable about implementing this (long ago). also the writer said "bad" pcie slots were not so common (since long ago and) on intel chipsets, but more common on amd. I am still using a 10 year old computer with linux. https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1104058 https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/216451/difference-between-general-purpose-pcie-signals-and-pci-express-graphics-peg https://superuser.com/questions/89222/will-a-regular-pci-express-card-work-in-a-pci-express-x16-graphics-peg-slot also the motherboard manual (several of them actually) more or less said "for video only" and the tech support representative didn't know what I was talking about. I guess I'm so old that people nowadays rarely use slots except for video, thunderbolt and servers, they just use all the back panel ports. Look at NUC.

asrock X299 OC Formula motherboard: I have at most two video cards. slot population rules from manual ----------------------------------------- (1) 5 x PCI Express 3.0 x16 Slots* * If you install CPU with 44 lanes, PCIE1/PCIE3/PCIE4/PCIE5/PCIE7 will run at x16/x0/x0/x16/x8 or x8/x8/x8/x8/x8. * If you install CPU with 28 lanes, PCIE1/PCIE3/PCIE4/PCIE5/PCIE7 will run at x16/x0/x0/x8/x4 or x8/x8/x0/x8/x4. * If you install CPU with 16 lanes, PCIE1/PCIE3/PCIE4/PCIE5/PCIE7 will run at x16/x0/x0/x0/x4 or x8/x0/x0/x8/x4. * Please note that the 3-way SLI configuration varies depending on processor type. * Supports NVMe SSD as boot disks (2) 1 x PCI Express 3.0 x4 Slot (PCIE6: x4 mode) (Flexible PCIe)** ** If you install CPU with 28 lanes or 16 lanes, PCIE6 will be disabled. (3) 1 x PCI Express 2.0 x1 Slot (4) Supports AMD Quad CrossFireX, 4-Way CrossFireX, 3-Way CrossFireX TM and CrossFireX TM *** *** 4-Way CrossFireX TM is only supported with CPU with 44 lanes or 28 lanes. (5) Supports NVIDIA® Quad SLI, 4-Way SLI, 3-Way SLI, and SLI **** **** 3-Way SLI TM is only supported with CPU with 44 lanes or 28 lanes; 4-Way SLI TM is only supported with CPU with 44 lanes. (6) 15μ Gold Contact in VGA PCIe Slot (PCIE1 and PCIE5) PCIE1 (PCIe 3.0 x16 slot) is used for PCI Express x16 lane width graphics cards. PCIE2 (PCIe 2.0 x 1 slot) is used for PCI Express x 1 lane width cards. PCIE3 (PCIe 3.0 x16 slot) is used for PCI Express x 8 lane width graphics cards. PCIE4 (PCIe 3.0 x16 slot) is used for PCI Express x 8 lane width graphics cards. PCIE5 (PCIe 3.0 x16 slot) is used for PCI Express x16 lane width graphics cards. PCIE6 (PCIe 3.0 x 4 slot) is used for PCI Express x 4 lane width graphics cards. PCIE7 (PCIe 3.0 x16 slot) is used for PCI Express x 8 lane width graphics cards. PCIe Slot Configurations (For CPU with 44 PCIe lanes) PCIE1 3 4 5 7 x16 N/A N/A N/A N/A ; 1 Graphics Card x16 N/A N/A x16 N/A ; 2 Graphics Cards in 2-Way CrossFireX Mode or 2-Way SLI Mode x16 N/A N/A x16 x8 ; 3 Graphics Cards in 3-Way CrossFireX Mode or 3-Way SLI Mode x8 x8 N/A x16 x8 ; 4 Graphics Cards in 4-Way CrossFireX Mode or 4-Way SLI Mode ( last row is what I want PCIE1,PCIE3,PCIE7 at x8 and PCIE5 at x16 ); PCIe Slot Configurations (For CPU with 28 PCIe lanes) PCIE1 3 4 5 7 x16 N/A N/A N/A N/A ; 1 Graphics Card x16 N/A N/A x8 N/A ; 2 Graphics Cards in 2-Way CrossFireX Mode or 2-Way SLI Mode x8 x8 N/A x8 N/A ; 3 Graphics Cards in 3-Way CrossFireX Mode or 3-Way SLI Mode x8 x8 N/A x8 x4 ; 4 Graphics Cards in 4-Way CrossFireX Mode Suppose I have a 44 lane CPU and I set it in bios to x8/x8/x8/x8/x8: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- I want to use the rest of the video slots at x8 for non-video cards: pw = physical width; slot; pw; lanes; card; PCIE1: x16 x8 ; video; PCIE2: x 1 x1 ; PCIE3: x16 x8 ; NIC 10baseT; uses x8 or x4 lanes; full speed; PCIE4: x16 x8 ; USB 3.x; uses x4 lanes; Supposedly x8 lanes available????; PCIE5: x16 x16; video; PCIE6: x 4 x4 ; thunderbolt; PCIE7: x16 x8 ; note used x44 lanes total; Suppose I have a 44 lane CPU and I have to set it to x16/x0/x0/x16/x8: --------------------------------------------------------------------------- I want to use the rest of the video slots at x8 for non-video cards: pw = physical width; slot; pw; lanes; card; PCIE1: x16 x16; video; PCIE2: x 1 x1 ; USB 3.x; normally requires x4 lanes; PCIE3: x16 x0 ; PCIE4: x16 x0 ; PCIE5: x16 x16; video; PCIE6: x 4 x4 ; thunderbolt; PCIE7: x16 x8 ; NIC 10baseT; uses x8 or x4 lanes; full speed; note used x44 lanes total; QUICK QUESTIONS PLEASE: -------------------------- concerned about the so-called "video" slots (PCIE1, PCIE3, PCIE4, PCIE5, PCIE7); I want to use the rest of the video slots at x8 for non-video cards, (but these motherboards are marketed exclusively to gamers who mainly care about SLI and crossfire and presumably do not want to use non-video cards); Can you put anything you want in any slot (assuming it physically fits) and assuming there are enough lanes allocated to that slot it will operate at full speed ???? more specifically: Will the motherboard force me to use x16/x0/x0/x16/x8 and run PCIE3 and PCIE4 at x0 if I plug in only one or two video cards ???? Can you put the video in one of the "video slots" for example PCIE1 and the NIC in PCIE7 as shown above with both of them working at the same time ???? Can you put a video card in PCIE1 and an NVIDIA Tesla in PCIE5 if those slots are each allocated 16 lanes ???? In bios, you can set the individual speeds (#lanes ???) of the PCIE1 ... PCIE7 slots, but what restrictions are there ???? Is this typical of all the recent motherboards with SLI/Crossfire ???? please note if you are absolutely certain about your reply before I pay for the motherboard. my existing computer is 11 years old, and I can not afford to waste my money. MUCH THANKS regards