MSI 970 Gaming Motherboard PCIe Question

[Devan_5]

So I was looking to upgrade my system and throw in a second GTX 960 SSC ACX 2.0+ in my system to run SLI. But when I was being a good boy and actually reading up before just buying another card, I looked at my motherboards specifications. While it says the board is SLI compatible I'm not quite sure what it is talking about when talking about the PCIe slots. It reads:

• 2 x PCIe 2.0 x16 slots
- PCI_E2 supports up to PCIe 2.0 x16 speed
- PCI_E4 supports up to PCIe 2.0 x8 speed

So from what I understand, there is obviously 2 PCIe x16 slots, but are they running at different speeds? Is the second slot at half speed? Just curious.

Oh. And my motherboard is a MSI 970 Gaming Motherboard.

 

[Seanie280672]

So I was looking to upgrade my system and throw in a second GTX 960 SSC ACX 2.0+ in my system to run SLI. But when I was being a good boy and actually reading up before just buying another card, I looked at my motherboards specifications. While it says the board is SLI compatible I'm not quite sure what it is talking about when talking about the PCIe slots. It reads:

• 2 x PCIe 2.0 x16 slots
- PCI_E2 supports up to PCIe 2.0 x16 speed
- PCI_E4 supports up to PCIe 2.0 x8 speed

So from what I understand, there is obviously 2 PCIe x16 slots, but are they running at different speeds? Is the second slot at half speed? Just curious.

Oh. And my motherboard is a MSI 970 Gaming Motherboard.

Yup, the 2nd slot runs at x8 speed, if you have a look in the slot, you'll see the electrical pins only run halfway down the slot, when you use 2 cards, doesnt matter if its crossfire or SLi, both cards run at x8 x8, or 1 card at x16, in most cases, its better just to get 1 x decent card to start with unless you have a motherboard for instance which comes with a PLX chip, which provides those missing 8 lanes allowing both cards to run at x16 x16, these boards are pretty expensive though.

 

[Devan_5]

So I was looking to upgrade my system and throw in a second GTX 960 SSC ACX 2.0+ in my system to run SLI. But when I was being a good boy and actually reading up before just buying another card, I looked at my motherboards specifications. While it says the board is SLI compatible I'm not quite sure what it is talking about when talking about the PCIe slots. It reads:

• 2 x PCIe 2.0 x16 slots
- PCI_E2 supports up to PCIe 2.0 x16 speed
- PCI_E4 supports up to PCIe 2.0 x8 speed

So from what I understand, there is obviously 2 PCIe x16 slots, but are they running at different speeds? Is the second slot at half speed? Just curious.

Oh. And my motherboard is a MSI 970 Gaming Motherboard.

Yup, the 2nd slot runs at x8 speed, if you have a look in the slot, you'll see the electrical pins only run halfway down the slot, when you use 2 cards, doesnt matter if its crossfire or SLi, both cards run at x8 x8, or 1 card at x16, in most cases, its better just to get 1 x decent card to start with unless you have a motherboard for instance which comes with a PLX chip, which provides those missing 8 lanes allowing both cards to run at x16 x16, these boards are pretty expensive though.

So would it be worth it to get the second card? Or should I upgrade other parts of my computer?

 

[Seanie280672]

So I was looking to upgrade my system and throw in a second GTX 960 SSC ACX 2.0+ in my system to run SLI. But when I was being a good boy and actually reading up before just buying another card, I looked at my motherboards specifications. While it says the board is SLI compatible I'm not quite sure what it is talking about when talking about the PCIe slots. It reads:

• 2 x PCIe 2.0 x16 slots
- PCI_E2 supports up to PCIe 2.0 x16 speed
- PCI_E4 supports up to PCIe 2.0 x8 speed

So from what I understand, there is obviously 2 PCIe x16 slots, but are they running at different speeds? Is the second slot at half speed? Just curious.

Oh. And my motherboard is a MSI 970 Gaming Motherboard.

Yup, the 2nd slot runs at x8 speed, if you have a look in the slot, you'll see the electrical pins only run halfway down the slot, when you use 2 cards, doesnt matter if its crossfire or SLi, both cards run at x8 x8, or 1 card at x16, in most cases, its better just to get 1 x decent card to start with unless you have a motherboard for instance which comes with a PLX chip, which provides those missing 8 lanes allowing both cards to run at x16 x16, these boards are pretty expensive though.

So would it be worth it to get the second card? Or should I upgrade other parts of my computer?

2 x GTX 960 will pretty much run at the equivalent speeds of a single 970 possibly a 980, so you are not gaining much at all.

If you have the opportunity to upgrade other parts, id take that route.

 

[Faike]

To summarize:
Two 960s means both are running at x8 speeds essentially rather than x16.
No reason for two graphics cards.