Need some opinions on SLI motherboards. Help please

ThiefOfOranges

Reputable
Jul 11, 2014
6
0
4,520
Well, I bought a second PNY GTX 660 Graphics card thinking i could SLI them together. Unfortunately my MSI Z87-G41 motherboard supports dual GPU, as well as xfire, but doesn't support SLI :(

So my question is what would be the best Motherboard to get for the price that's SLI capable and wouldn't give me a performance drop. There's some numbers I'm not quite familiar with to be honest, like motherboards that have 2 PCI-e slots and when running two devices are running x8 instead of x16. I was wondering if there were boards that run both cards at x16, or is x8 the default for running two cards (sorry if I sound stupid, I'm just confused on this subject.) Also wondering what the actual performance difference is between these boards.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HSCIT60/?tag=pcpapi-20

Looking at this I believe the cards would both be running at x8 if I'm correct.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157373&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=

Then when I look at the specs on this motherboard it says there are 2 PCI Express 3.0 x16
so would this mean they would both run at x16 or would they also run at x8 when you have two cards in SLI. So I guess my main question is do they make mobos that both run at x16 and what would the performance difference of this be? Or does this just not exist

Again, sorry if I sound COMPLETELY clueless because I am, any help would be appreciated.

Thanks
 
Solution
There are boards that run both cards at x16, but they're more expensive and the performance differential is miniscule. Anyway, there's no way you're going to saturate x8 with 660s so there's no point trying to get two x16 slots. When specs say 2 PCI Express 3.0 x16, unless it specifically states otherwise, it means that it has two PCI Express 3.0 slots that can each run x16, but run at x8 if both slots are used.

For a replacement, what's your budget and what CPU are you using?
There are boards that run both cards at x16, but they're more expensive and the performance differential is miniscule. Anyway, there's no way you're going to saturate x8 with 660s so there's no point trying to get two x16 slots. When specs say 2 PCI Express 3.0 x16, unless it specifically states otherwise, it means that it has two PCI Express 3.0 slots that can each run x16, but run at x8 if both slots are used.

For a replacement, what's your budget and what CPU are you using?
 
Solution

Latest posts