PCI-E Lanes confused me !

[Ahmed Almajdob]

I have MSI Z87 G45 gaming mobo with 4770k from intel
i just ordered 2 of gigabyte gaming G1 980 gtx
my mobo support SLI
my question is:
will my mobo limit the gpu power cuz at sli the pci-e will set to 8x not 16x
or it is normal or i should sell my cpu and mobo and get x99 to get more lanes

 

[CrimsonLuke]

You could use 2 x 8 lanes if you're SLI'ing two gpus... You'll be fine as long as you have enough power being supplied from the PSU. What PSU do you have? Do you have an SLI bridge?

 

[Sakkura]

8 lanes of PCIe 3.0 is plenty for any current graphics card, so performance will not be negatively affected.

 

[rhysiam]

So for SLI Nvidia requires slots with at least x8 PCIe lanes on them.

As you've said, your motherboard will do precisely that, provided you don't have any additional PCIe cards installed (no sound card or wifi card, etc). In that case it will have to drop to x8 on one slot, with x4 lanes on the other two slots. In that case you can't enable SLI and is doesn't meet Nvidia's spec.

PCIe 3.0 x8, which you have with that motherboard, provides plenty of bandwidth for even high end video cards. That's a very solid setup you have there, no need to go with the much more expensive x99 unless you want the option of adding extra cards beyond just the two graphics cards.

 

[Ahmed Almajdob]

You could use 2 x 8 lanes if you're SLI'ing two gpus... You'll be fine as long as you have enough power being supplied from the PSU. What PSU do you have? Do you have an SLI bridge?

XFX PRO1000W LTD Full Modular 80PLUS Platinum PSU Compatible with Intel Core i3, i5, i7 and AMD Phenom, Black Edition (P11000BELX)

 

[Ahmed Almajdob]

Thanks people am fine now i feel better dat i don't need to waste more money than i wasted yeterday on 980 sli

 

[CrimsonLuke]

That'll definitely do, Ahmed! Very good PSU by the sounds of it.

 

[Sakkura]

So for SLI Nvidia requires slots with at least x8 PCIe lanes on them.

As you've said, your motherboard will do precisely that, provided you don't have any additional PCIe cards installed (no sound card or wifi card, etc). In that case it will have to drop to x8 on one slot, with x4 lanes on the other two slots. In that case you can't enable SLI and is doesn't meet Nvidia's spec.

PCIe 3.0 x8, which you have with that motherboard, provides plenty of bandwidth for even high end video cards. That's a very solid setup you have there, no need to go with the much more expensive x99 unless you want the option of adding extra cards beyond just the two graphics cards.

No, that's not a concern. The Z87 chipset has 8 PCIe 2.0 lanes available for sound cards, wifi cards etc. so they don't take any of the PCIe 3.0 lanes directly from the CPU, the ones that are intended for graphics cards.