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Help a noob understand PCI lanes?
- Thread starter BottomsUp
- Start date
The 1151 CPU will continue to have 16 lanes for graphics, single x16, two x8, or x8 and two x4
The z170 boards have 20 gen 3 lanes up from 8 gen 2 lanes. Mostly to support 4 lane m.2 slots for those nvme ssd drives and USB C and the x1 slots on board and connectins to network chips and such.
The z170 boards have 20 gen 3 lanes up from 8 gen 2 lanes. Mostly to support 4 lane m.2 slots for those nvme ssd drives and USB C and the x1 slots on board and connectins to network chips and such.
Tsumi
[H]F Junkie
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You only need a total of 16 lanes for 670 SLI.
Truth be told, two 670's both running in 2.0 X4 lanes won't bottleneck them. A 980 Ti wouldn't be extremely hampered either.
EDIT: It's only a 980, but you can see how little you lose and at different resolutions. http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GTX_980_PCI-Express_Scaling/21.html
EDIT 2: Just figured out how to enable PCIE 3.0 on my X79 Dark and 3930K. The force PCIE 3.0 patch didn't do it by itself, I had to remove my XMP profile and manually set RAM timing/speed which got it working. From PCIE 2.0 X8 to PCIE 3.0 X8 (RAID card and CPU cooler clearance issues forced this X8 slot on me) got me from the 100 FPS to 103.5 FPS in the Valley extreme 1080P preset benchmark with a Gigabyte 980 Ti G1 overclocked to 1497 boost (1485 after that >62C downclock). Not huge, but it was a free performance boost (if it remains stable).
EDIT: It's only a 980, but you can see how little you lose and at different resolutions. http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GTX_980_PCI-Express_Scaling/21.html
EDIT 2: Just figured out how to enable PCIE 3.0 on my X79 Dark and 3930K. The force PCIE 3.0 patch didn't do it by itself, I had to remove my XMP profile and manually set RAM timing/speed which got it working. From PCIE 2.0 X8 to PCIE 3.0 X8 (RAID card and CPU cooler clearance issues forced this X8 slot on me) got me from the 100 FPS to 103.5 FPS in the Valley extreme 1080P preset benchmark with a Gigabyte 980 Ti G1 overclocked to 1497 boost (1485 after that >62C downclock). Not huge, but it was a free performance boost (if it remains stable).
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PCIe lanes are the pathways from the different components of your PC to your CPU, minus the SATA devices and memory. Its how everything else talks to your CPU. Each single lane has a specific amount of bandwidth they can utilize, the more you have the more you can utilize. These go to your PCIe slots and m.2 slots.
On a motherboard the m.2 is used only for storage. The PCIe slots come in factors of x1, x4, x8 and x16. All that means is they can utilize up to that many lanes. You are still limited by the max amount your CPU/motherboard supports.
As for 670 sli's you don't need much, especially if you are on PCIe 3.0.
On a motherboard the m.2 is used only for storage. The PCIe slots come in factors of x1, x4, x8 and x16. All that means is they can utilize up to that many lanes. You are still limited by the max amount your CPU/motherboard supports.
As for 670 sli's you don't need much, especially if you are on PCIe 3.0.