[SOLVED] Number of Usable Gigabyte Designare PCIe slots?

[dg27]

I'm planning specs for an i7-9700 machine that will be built for me. After I receive it, I'll be adding components from my current machine (such as storage drives and PCIe cards).

I've chosen the Gigabyte Z390 Designare. Reading the review here

Gigabyte Z390 Designare Review: High-End Excellence

I'm a bit confused about how many PCIe slots will be usable.

I'm planning on using a 512GB Samsung 970 Pro MZ-V7P12BW M.2 PCIe boot drive. I've told the builder I'd like it installed in slot 2, so I only lose 1 SATA port.

According to the specs the Designare has three PCIe x16 and two PCIe x1 (five total).

I'm completely unfamiliar with modern motherboards (my current machine is a circa 2010 Dell Studio XPS 9100). In the picture shown in the review there's an M.2 drive above what I guess is a heat a chrome heat spreader or shroud. Does that knock out one PCIe slot?

I'm using an RX580 GPU (I do no gaming at all: GPU is the lowest priority). That takes up one PCIe slot.

How many slots will be available?

Thanks for any help.

 

[k1114]

The heat spreaders don't block anything. The included intel cnvi in the top m.2 slot does not knock anything out. The gpu will take the top pcie x16 and block the top pcie x1 slot. Everything else will be open to use.

 

[dg27]

OK--thanks so much--that's a relief. That gives me three PCIe slots I can use.

My case allows for four HDDs and I need two optical drives . I currently use a pair of PCIe cards to attach the ODDs without using up SATA ports.