Help me understand these PCI-E lanes on this board.

neko77025 · Feb 4, 2015

(BEFORE YOU COMMENT ABOUT A BOARD WITH M.2 SSD, I have one , Plextor M6e PX-G256M6e and I HATE it, its is not any faster then my Mushkin Enhanced Chronos 240s. And it is A Witch to secure erase! )

Hello , Made A post about A month ago that it is time to upgrade mobo / cpu ect ect. The Issue I was having with the z97 / 4790k is the Lack of PCI-E lanes .. inlesss the board has A PLX chip. The 4790k only has 16 Lanes, So I can run 2x GPUs at 8x ea. I want too run 2x GPUs (8x ea), 1sound card at 1x and one PCI-E SSD at 4x.

Their are A few boards that PLX chips on them in the z97 / 87 / 77 (1150) ...

The Asus Maximus VII has no PLX chip ... and its one of the ones I am kind of leaning toward .. it OCs well and looks very nice. Would fit for my theme build.

Expansion Slots
PCI Express 3.0 x16
2
PCI Express 2.0 x16
1 (x4 mode)
PCI Express x1
3
Mini Card Slots
1 x mini-PCIe 2.0 x1

So based on this .. are the PCI-E 3.0 and 2.0 on diffrent lanes ? .. Could I run the 2x GPUS on 8x 3.0s and then the Sound card and SSD on the 2.0s ?

Just for info, the GPUs are 2x780 ti , Sound card is ASUS Xonar Phoebus and SSD will be ASUS ROG RAIDR (maybe A G.SKILL Phoenix Blade ),

Will all 4 of these cards work on this board.
Also this board has on Molex or PCI-e plug too give the board extra power for PCI-E slots .. will it burn out the Main plug.

The Von Matrices · Feb 5, 2015

neko77025 said:
Will all 4 of these cards work on this board.

No.

Page 1-26 from the user manual states that if you want to use the last PCIe slot at x4, then you have to disable the x1 slots, leaving no room for the sound card. To use the x1 slots, you have to run the last PCIe x16 at 2.0 x1 bandwidth, which means the PCIe SSD would be bandwidth constrained.

Fortunately, that ASUS RAIDR card only uses PCIe x2. I'm sure there are other boards that allow PCIe x2 while x1 slots are enabled. The P8P67 Pro I used to own had the ability to run the PCIe x16 slot at x2 while I used the x1 slots. It's just a matter of finding the right board.

neko77025 · Feb 5, 2015

The Von Matrices said:
hich means t

Well thank you very much Sir, Arg Asus is pissing me off I dont like any of their 1150 boards .... Why did they not add A PLX chip too this one.

Arjai · Feb 5, 2015

Looks like this ASUS MB might be the answer.

GPU Pci3.0 x8
sound card and ssd in PCI slot 1 and 3 for PCI2.0 x4

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Z97PROWiFi_ac/overview/

Correct me if I am wrong but, that is how I read the specs page. :toast:

The Von Matrices · Feb 5, 2015

Arjai said:
Looks like this ASUS MB might be the answer.

GPU Pci3.0 x8
sound card and ssd in PCI slot 1 and 3 for PCI2.0 x4

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Z97PROWiFi_ac/overview/

Correct me if I am wrong but, that is how I read the specs page.

You're right - after reading the manual, I think that board would work. I've never seen a board that had a switch to let you choose which one of the PCIe x1 slots is enabled, but that Z97 Pro does (usually you're stuck with whatever slot the manufacturer chooses).

The model without Wi-Fi has the same configuration if the OP doesn't need Wi-Fi. The only thing that gets disabled when you use the x4 slot is one of the USB 3 headers, so you can only have 2 front USB 3 ports instead of 4.

newtekie1 · Feb 5, 2015

You might want to look at the AsRock Z97 Extreme6. It has the PCI-E slot configuration that would let you run what you want to run. The last PCI-E x16 slot is only electrically an x2, but that is still way fast for just storage. In fact it is a lot faster than the ASUS ROG RAIDR. And the ROG RAIDR is only electrically x2 anyway...it is almost like the Extreme6 and RAIDR were made for eachother. :toast:

neko77025 said:
So based on this .. are the PCI-E 3.0 and 2.0 on diffrent lanes ?

Just to help clarify a little bit. The Z97 platform only has 16 PCI-E 3.0 lanes wired to the CPU. It has an additional 8 PCI-E 2.0 lanes wired to the Z97 chipset itself.

rtwjunkie · Feb 6, 2015

newtekie1 said:
Just to help clarify a little bit. The Z97 platform only has 16 PCI-E 3.0 lanes wired to the CPU. It has an additional 8 PCI-E 2.0 lanes wired to the Z97 chipset itself.

So, on that note, what would utilize those Z97 chipset lanes?

newtekie1 · Feb 6, 2015

rtwjunkie said:
So, on that note, what would utilize those Z97 chipset lanes?

They are used for extra features on the board. Extra SATA controllers, extra network controllers, SATA Express ports, M.2 Slots, etc. As well as the extra PCI-E x1 slots. Those lanes are plenty fast enough for storage and everything except graphics really.

rtwjunkie · Feb 6, 2015

Thanks for the explanation @newtekie1 !

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System Name	All the Cores ... (VMs)
Processor	Ryzen9 5900x
Motherboard	Gigabyte X570 Aorus Master (Bios F36c)
Cooling	Noctua NH-D15S
Memory	TridentZ neo 4x 16gb 3600Mhz C16 (F4-3600C16D-32GTZNC)
Video Card(s)	RTX 3070 Ti
Storage	2x Sn750 2TB
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Case	CASELABS M8
Power Supply	EVGA SuperNOVA g5 750w
Mouse	Corsair m65 Pro
Keyboard	Corsair K70
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Benchmark Scores	N/A .. yet updating soon

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Processor	AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D
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Memory	96GB (2 x 48 GB) G.Skill DDR5-6000 CL30
Video Card(s)	MSI NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Suprim X 24GB
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Display(s)	2 x Viotek GFI27QXA 27" 4K 120Hz + LG UH850 4K 60Hz + HMD
Case	NZXT Source 530
Audio Device(s)	Sony MDR-7506 / Logitech Z-5500 5.1
Power Supply	Corsair RM1000x 1 kW
Mouse	Patriot Viper V560
Keyboard	Corsair K100
VR HMD	HP Reverb G2
Software	Windows 11 Pro x64
Benchmark Scores	Mellanox ConnectX-3 10 Gb/s Fiber Network Card

Help me understand these PCI-E lanes on this board.

neko77025

The Von Matrices

neko77025

Arjai

The Von Matrices

newtekie1

Semi-Retired Folder

rtwjunkie

PC Gaming Enthusiast

newtekie1

Semi-Retired Folder

rtwjunkie

PC Gaming Enthusiast

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