Question about PCI-E lanes

[reaperfang]

So I as I'm sitting here planning out my first build and considering this and that, whether I might want to upgrade here or there down the round, I learned about PCI-E lanes and how the processor I'm looking at (i7-4970k) or even the i5, has only 16 PCI-E lanes.  And I realized: If I ever decide to SLI, I will out of lanes.

 

So does this mean if I ever SLI, any kind of expansion card will be out of the question? And if so, then what is the point of all the extra PCI-E slots on ATX Mobo's?

[EcoBoost]

So I as I'm sitting here planning out my first build and considering this and that, whether I might want to upgrade here or there down the round, I learned about PCI-E lanes and how the processor I'm looking at (i7-4970k) or even the i5, has only 16 PCI-E lanes.  And I realized: If I ever decide to SLI, I will out of lanes.

 

So does this mean if I ever SLI, any kind of expansion card will be out of the question? And if so, then what is the point of all the extra PCI-E slots on Mobo's?

The 16 PCIe lanes from the CPU itself are just for graphics. The other slots like the PCIe x1 slots run off the chipset. So you can have two GPUs in 8x/8x SLI and you will still be able to use expansion cards.

[Glenwing]

The x1 slots are usually wired via the secondary lanes provided by the chipset, and won't take away from the 16 main lanes used for the full length slots.