GTX 970 SLI on X16 and X4 slots?

[Inchun]

First off, hello newcomer here. I was looking for the search function in the forum but just couldn't find it..... Any help?

On topic, would I be able to SLI on a PCIe 3.0 x16 and x4 slots, instead of the standard x16/x16 or x16/x8? I have my second EVGA GTX 970 SSC on order so I can't go around testing it. My motherboard (EVGA z97 FTW) has x16 on the first slot, then x8, then x4 and finally x1. Thing is, I really don't want my GPU's to be that close to each other especially since they are not reference cards that only depend on the exhaust for cooling. So I figured maybe x16 and x4 would work?

I've googled it for a while now, and I've gotten many different opinions on the matter. Many are saying it won't work since SLI needs at least x8 to work, while others are saying that there is a 5% decrease in performance which honestly isn't that big of a deal to me. The Nvidia website itself confirms that SLI won't work with anything below x8, however it seems some people have gotten it to work and had benchmarks showing 2% decrease in performance for x16/x8 and 5% decrease for x16/x4. I'm very confused here, HALP! 

[Godlygamer23]

No - NVIDIA requires PCIe slots to be running in x8 mode to be compatible with SLI. Anything less does not work. I imagine people used HyperSLI to make it work which is a driver hack.

[dragoon20005]

SLi needs both slot to be x8 speed to work

 

 

the x16 / x4 you see is for AMD CrossFire

[Inchun]

Well... I guess I gotta invest in another motherboard... I only got this one because it came with my i5 4690k as a bundle. I just couldn't say no to that $70 off lol. Any suggestions? 

On a side note, I think I'll give that hyper sli thing a try until I buy another motherboard. Any tips on using it before I go start messing with it?

[Godlygamer23]

Any tips on using it before I go start messing with it?

When in doubt, don't do it.