PCIe slots - Will these capture cards slow my Vdeo card speed?

[liberty610]

Hi guys.

I am a bit puzzled about the expansion slots on my motherboard. I know adding more then one PCI 16 card can slow the speeds to 8, 4, ect depending on what I have put in. But I have a slightly different situation with my new board.

I just got my new system built. I am running an Intel Core i7 6800k cpu, 32gigs of DDR4 OC at 3000, and I have the MSI X99a Gaming Pro Carbon motherboard.

The Board has 6 PCIE slots. 4 of them are 3.0 slots. The first 2 are 3.0 16x and the last 2 are 3.0 8x.

The other 2 are 2.0 1x slots. Here is my situation...

My GTX 960 card takes up the first 16x slot, but it also covers up the PCIE 1x port. I have 2 PCIE 1x cards I need to use. One is the Live Gamer HD video capture card from Aver Media found here:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815100100

And the other is the Hauppauge Colossus video capture card found here:
https://www.amazon.com/Hauppauge-Colossus-Express-Internal-HD-PVR/dp/B004OVE2B4

Now, because my first PCIE 1x slot is covered up by the GTX 960, can I put the Happauge card in one of the remaining PCIE 16 slots? And will that effect the speed of my GTX 960 card? I have the Live Gamer HD card in the second PCIE 1x slot, but I need both capture cards as the Happage records SD video from analog sources.

Thanks in advance for any replies!

 

[InvalidError]

The dedicated 3.0 x16 and x8 slots are hard-wired to the CPU and nothing you do on one should have any meaningful impact on the others.

 

[liberty610]

I don't know if we are on the same page here. I don't think my question was answered ha.

First, from what I am understanding by the bandwidth table in my mobo manual, speed is effected with multple video cards.

If I had 2 video cards in the first two 16x slots, they both would run at 16x. But if I added a 3rd one and even a 4th one in the last two 8x slots, then they all would run at 8x, yes? That's the way I am reading the bandwidth table....

My CPU only has 28 lanes on it and 3 or more cards would only run at 8x per card because of the 28 lanes limitations. A 3 way card setup on a 40 lane would work all 3 at 16x, but 4 cards on a 40 lane would drop to 8x. IF I am reading it right.

So, my question is, even though I am not using another full video card and the card is just a PCIE1x card, can I put that in one of the 16x slots, and if I do will it casue badnwdth issues with my main card?

 

[liberty610]

One of the other threads on here with a similar question had this to say, which seems to be more of answer I was looking for...

"As long as the card has the same or less size than the slot, it will fit. Will it work as you want it to? Maybe.

What does matter is whether you will end up disabling or reducing the bandwidth of other slots by adding this card. Read the manual for your motherboard. It will tell you what is shared, disabled or otherwise impacted by adding a card, and where you may add it without impacting the rest of your system.

For example. Using the second x16 slot in many boards forces the main video card to run at x8 instead of x16. Another example is the shared x1 slots that may impact other slots in your machine.

This is often a matter of having more options on a given motherboard than a cpu and bridge chip can handle all at once. Compromises are made. It's up to you to decide how best to allocate limited rescources. You have the manual. It will tell you what if any impact there is to what you want to do."

So I'm assuming, even though it's not s a full 16x card, by putting it in the third 16x slot, it's going top to cut my first main x16 slot's bandwidth down, dropping out to 8x.

 

[InvalidError]

Even if the GPU drops to x8, the performance degradation will be hardly noticeable.

But even on a 28 lanes CPU, there will be at least one slot configuration allowing you to get x16x8x4, enough to accommodate at least three boards without cutting into the main GPU's slot or using chipset PCIe lanes.