MSI x99a gaming 7 - PCIE for Sli

[natep_87]

I have a MSI x99a gaming 7 motherboard, i7 5930k and 2 MSI 980ti 6g gaming cards. The question is if I place the cards in slot 2 and 4 the cards are basically touching each other. Can I place one in slot 2 and one in 6 leaving two slots between them without losing performance?

I have never done a sli setup as I have always just bought a top of the line single card so I am a bit confused on the different pcie slots and their speeds.

[Timopomer]

I have a MSI x99a gaming 7 motherboard, i7 5930k and 2 MSI 980ti 6g gaming cards. The question is if I place the cards in slot 2 and 4 the cards are basically touching each other. Can I place one in slot 2 and one in 6 leaving two slots between them without losing performance?

I have never done a sli setup as I have always just bought a top of the line single card so I am a bit confused on the different pcie slots and their speeds.

the motherboard diagram shows the PCI-E lanes depending on how many GPUs you have

 

USUALLY its slot 2 and 4 or 1 and 3 so there is a gap, but check it!

 

for sli you need at least 8 lanes per card. less wont work, there is no additional performance benefit from more lanes

[Metaformed]

I have a MSI x99a gaming 7 motherboard, i7 5930k and 2 MSI 980ti 6g gaming cards. The question is if I place the cards in slot 2 and 4 the cards are basically touching each other. Can I place one in slot 2 and one in 6 leaving two slots between them without losing performance?

I have never done a sli setup as I have always just bought a top of the line single card so I am a bit confused on the different pcie slots and their speeds.

If you already have the board and cards, then why not try it, it wont hurt the GPUs, it will just put them in different modes, they could both be in 16x or both in 8x, 4x ect. Then open GPUz and see what they are in.

[natep_87]

I checked the manual before and thought it was slot 2 and 4 which i recalled incorrectly. They are currently in 1 and 3 and that means they are running in 16x each of them. The problem is the cards are very close and I am worry about cooling.

The manual only shows those two slots for 2way sli and 3 way it shows slot 6 as well. Just wondering if there is any issue in placing the second card in slot 6 even if in 3way its says 8x but in 2way its crossed out?

[Curufinwe_wins]

Try it. I mean it shouldn't take more than 10min to find out if sli is actually working with that slot configuration.