PCI lanes limits?

[OddsCrazyStuff]

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5812#ov

I'm using the GA-X99-Designare EX as an example, since full data is available on it.

 

Can you actually do 3 way SLI and use 3x PCI 3.0 x4 storage?

Its just 24 + 12 lanes, if the motherboard supports it.

 

Also, how many motherboards would supports something like that?

4 way SLI boards works, if it got M.2 and/or U.2 also.

[Lurick]

If you can fit all the devices onto the board then yes it will work with something like a 5930K, 6850K, etc. CPU which supports 40 PCIe lanes.

The only boards I could find that could support a config like that are:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA24G37P8164

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132506

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157538

[OddsCrazyStuff]

3 minutes ago, Lurick said:

If you can fit all the devices onto the board then yes it will work with something like a 5930K, 6850K, etc. CPU which supports 40 PCIe lanes.

The only boards I could find that could support a config like that are:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA24G37P8164

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132506

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157538

I'm looking at the new board, as they come with M.2+U.2, meaning you dont need single slot cards to make it all work.

Its just a matter of PCI lane distribution, as some boards forces 16x for at least 1 GPU.

[Lurick]

6 minutes ago, OddsCrazyStuff said:

I'm looking at the new board, as they come with M.2+U.2, meaning you dont need single slot cards to make it all work.

Its just a matter of PCI lane distribution, as some boards forces 16x for at least 1 GPU.

Then you would have to check and see what slots are disabled when both M.2 and U.2 are populated. From there you should only need 4 PCIe slots to make it all work but I've never heard of boards forcing x16 on a slot, they are usually wired that way but don't need to operate at that. They should step down to 8x no problem if there aren't enough lanes.

[OddsCrazyStuff]

1 minute ago, Lurick said:

Then you would have to check and see what slots are disabled when both M.2 and U.2 are populated. From there you should only need 4 PCIe slots to make it all work but I've never heard of boards forcing x16 on a slot, they are usually wired that way but don't need to operate at that. They should step down to 8x no problem if there aren't enough lanes.

I think it was when I was looking into 3 way SLI + PCI card + m.2, that I found that some motherboards ran out of PCI 3.0 lanes, as they didnt share the lanes right for that setup.

 

Which is why I'm getting help to check which motherboard allows my "stuffed" setup.