In the midst of buying new parts for a major tower upgrade, I failed to fully think through my GPU placement. The setup will be an MSI X99A Gaming 7 mobo, i7-5820K CPU, and 2 x 980Ti in SLI. The Gaming 7 has PCIe 3.0 for the x16 slots, working in x16/ x8/ x0/ x0 for 2-way or x8/ x8/ x8/ x0 for 3-way (with a 28-lane CPU).
So onto the question: is it better (or necessary) to have the GPUs sandwiched close together in the first two slots, creating more heat but utilizing that x16 mode in the first slot, or to put the cards in slots 1 and 3, forcing them both to work in x8 mode but decreasing temperatures? I'm basically wondering if the GPUs being in x8 would create a bottleneck or if that's fine with PCIe 3.0. I had read up on it at one point but the answer didn't seem extremely solid, so I figured I'd get a real-time discussion/answer since, yes, the parts are currently on their way.
Edit: The last part I need to buy is the SLI bridge, which is what made me realize I needed to make a decision between a 40mm and 80mm bridge.
So onto the question: is it better (or necessary) to have the GPUs sandwiched close together in the first two slots, creating more heat but utilizing that x16 mode in the first slot, or to put the cards in slots 1 and 3, forcing them both to work in x8 mode but decreasing temperatures? I'm basically wondering if the GPUs being in x8 would create a bottleneck or if that's fine with PCIe 3.0. I had read up on it at one point but the answer didn't seem extremely solid, so I figured I'd get a real-time discussion/answer since, yes, the parts are currently on their way.
Edit: The last part I need to buy is the SLI bridge, which is what made me realize I needed to make a decision between a 40mm and 80mm bridge.
When it comes to 3.0, the bandwidth is high enough to make the 16x and 8x perform at nearly exactly the same level (minus a couple fps in a couple of tests, seemingly game-dependent) even in 3-way SLI at 4k resolution. So I, and whoever is reading this, can put our GPUs wherever we please, so long as at least an 8x slot is available.
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