junkeymonkey :
as long as you use the 2 lanes that are wired to the cpu-- when you use a pcie slot [3] it runs off the chipset and then shared with the pic-e [2ed] and you then get the 8x8x4 [normal ]
if you can find a review like this that better explains ''slots'' it may help some ??
my board
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/asrock-z87-extreme6-motherboard/2/
every board can be ''wired'' differently so its a good thing to know as you want to
like I stated in the toms review posts you would think intel could overcome this by now ?? amd been offering 2 full x16 ???
NVidia specs - sli for each lane to be x8 min. so as long as you get 2 pci-e at x8 each your good
one thig I see at asrock is they state quad sli on these boards ??? hows that work out asrock ???
''Supports NVIDIA® Quad SLI™ and SLI™
http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z170%20Extreme6/?cat=Specifications
I'm fairly aware of the idea of "slots", the problem comes from how they are listed out:
- 3 x PCI Express 3.0 x16 Slots (PCIE2/PCIE4/PCIE6: single at x16 (PCIE2); dual at x8 (PCIE2) / x8 (PCIE4); triple at x8 (PCIE2) / x8 (PCIE4) / x4 (PCIE6))
- 3 x PCI Express 3.0 x1 Slots (Flexible PCIe)
- Supports AMD Quad CrossFireX™, 3-Way CrossFireX™ and CrossFireX™
- Supports NVIDIA® Quad SLI™ <(defiantly weird) and SLI™
- 15μ Gold Contact in VGA PCIe Slot (PCIE2)
The first line tells me that there are 3 pcie slots yes but then says the brake down if three are occupied is x8/x4/x4 which would burn the sli. Then I come down a line and talks about the pcie x1 which I guess is just that? x1 lane?
At first glace this tells me that this board will not work with what I want. where as the msi's z170 board line up (
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=13-130-873 ) has it listed out simply 8/8/x4 so this one will work? It seemed odd to me that only one manufacturer would not have all 20 lanes available. As all of them say in some fashion that it will run x8/x8/x4.
wait though now that I look again this one has "triple at x8 (PCIE2) / x8 (PCIE4) / x4 (PCIE6))" that's what I'm looking for... then why did I, *looks at newegg specifications* there it is:
4 x PCI Express 3.0 x16 Slots (PCIE2/PCIE4/PCIE6: single at x16 (PCIE2); dual at x8 (PCIE2) / x8 (PCIE4);
triple at x8 (PCIE2) / x4 (PCIE4) / x4 (PCIE6). PCIE3: x4 mode)
PCI Express x1
1 x PCI Express 3.0 x1 Slot (PCIE5) (Flexible PCIe)
1 x PCI Express 2.0 x1 Slot (PCIE1)
Triple is listed out incorrectly on the newegg spec sheet... thanks for your time I think this answers my question.
I went to the AsRock website spec page because of the link junkeymonkey provided, thanks