I have Asus Z170-E motherboard...what goes in this slot 1x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (x2 mode)?

[Rm7670]

I have Asus Z170-E motherboard....2 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (x16 or dual x8), 1x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (x2 mode) . My first Intel chip and board in like a decade... I have been all AMD in past.

All review point to the 6th Gen I5 6600 which is what I bought with this board.

I haven't put it together yet.

I have one Evga gtx 960 in my amd system now. I bought a cheap 950 to replace it and put the 960 in new system.

My questions is another gtx 960 in the second slot makes SLI go...

what goes in the third slot?

1x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (x2 mode)

GTX 960 x8, GTX960x8, another one in the third slot at x2 makes no sense.

Xfire for Amd video does only slot 1 and 2.

Just not sure what it is for.

thanks.

 

[Decends]

I have Asus Z170-E motherboard....2 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (x16 or dual x8), 1x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (x2 mode) . My first Intel chip and board in like a decade... I have been all AMD in past.

All review point to the 6th Gen I5 6600 which is what I bought with this board.

I haven't put it together yet.

I have one Evga gtx 960 in my amd system now. I bought a cheap 950 to replace it and put the 960 in new system.

My questions is another gtx 960 in the second slot makes SLI go...

what goes in the third slot?

1x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (x2 mode)

GTX 960 x8, GTX960x8, another one in the third slot at x2 makes no sense.

Xfire for Amd video does only slot 1 and 2.

Just not sure what it is for.

thanks.

I Imagine the other slot would be for a PCI-E Expansion card (Wireless card, LAN card, etc) but if u were to use that third slot, you wouldnt be able to SLI. SLI requires that Both GPU's have Access to PCI-E 2.0 X8 at the very least. Using the third slot would reduce one of the GPU's to X4 and not allow SLI.

 

[smorizio]

if the 960 under 30 day return it. with todays games and gpu for the money you want one main gpu. a lot of games have issues with two gpu.
amd 480 at 200.00 pricve point is as fast as 980 were.
nvidia 1060 for 50.00 more are faster then the 480.

 

[Rm7670]

I am not sure if my diabetes kicker in or what... My Main card is a EVGA GTX 970 not 960. It makes the situation a little harder... because 970's are coming down in price but not as fast as you would think. I picked up a gtx 950 for my old main desktop just to keep it decent.

I still don't know what the third slot is for.... but should I go with single 970 for now with the I5-6600 and 16 gb of DDR4? this Asus Z170 is one hell of a board ( more that I realized)?

I could get a second 950 for pretty cheap... 160.
A second 970 is still up there.

I think I would be future solid with two 970's....which is way I will go just have to get it built and test out on the bunch of games.

Not trying to waste anyone's time. any input would be cool.

 

[smorizio]

to sli you need to of the same cards. any other card is a wast of money. myself use one 970 for now then when the newer volta gpu drop next year buy the 1070 volta replacement.