H97 motherboard CPU PCIE lanes and chipset lanes confusion

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qwertyyy123

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Aug 28, 2013
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I was reading about pcie lanes and got confused about the cpu provided lanes and chipset lanes.
For this particular chipset, it offers pcie 2.0 at 8 lanes where I know that the CPU offers 16 pcie lanes which is used by my graphics card. However, I also have a wireless pcie card on the motherboard as well.

*Am I correct to assume that the 16 pcie lanes from the CPU is being shared among the graphics card and the wireless card? If not, is the wireless card being powered by the chipset's lanes?
*What are the 8x pcie 2.0 from the chipset used for?

MB: Gigabyte H-97 Gaming 3
CPU: Intel i5-4460
GPU: MSI GTX 960 100ME
Ram: 8 GB Kingston 1333 Mhz
Power supply: Aerocool Templarius 850w
OS: Windows 7 64 bit
 
Solution
raisonjohn
We have the same motherboard (and previously same CPU until I upgraded to i7-4790). Anyway, you are correct: the i5-4460 (as well as other 4th and 5th gen intel cpu) supports up to 16x PCIe3.0 lanes; while the H97 Chipset supports up to 8x PCIe2.0 lanes.

The CPU solely supports the [x16] single-GPU slot (PCIEX16) only and does not include the Wireless Card (or any other cards for that matter) plugged in one of the other PCIe or PCI slots (which are supported by the Chipset).

The 8x PCIe2.0 lanes from the Chipset are taken (based on my understanding) as follows:
- The Qualcomm Atheros E2201 LAN, using [x1].
- The PCI Bus (of the three PCI slots), using [x1] (total) via PCIe to PCI Bridge.
- The x16-sized PCIe slot (PCIEX4) running at...
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raisonjohn

raisonjohn

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We have the same motherboard (and previously same CPU until I upgraded to i7-4790). Anyway, you are correct: the i5-4460 (as well as other 4th and 5th gen intel cpu) supports up to 16x PCIe3.0 lanes; while the H97 Chipset supports up to 8x PCIe2.0 lanes.

The CPU solely supports the [x16] single-GPU slot (PCIEX16) only and does not include the Wireless Card (or any other cards for that matter) plugged in one of the other PCIe or PCI slots (which are supported by the Chipset).

The 8x PCIe2.0 lanes from the Chipset are taken (based on my understanding) as follows:
- The Qualcomm Atheros E2201 LAN, using [x1].
- The PCI Bus (of the three PCI slots), using [x1] (total) via PCIe to PCI Bridge.
- The x16-sized PCIe slot (PCIEX4) running at [x4], for AMD CrossFire *or* The two PCIex1 slots at [x1] each, for other cards.
- The M.2 socket running at [x2], used for M.2 SSD in PCIe-mode. (Shared with SATAe and SATA3_45 connectors)
TOTAL = [x8] lanes
 
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Solution
Q

qwertyyy123

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Aug 28, 2013
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Thanks for explaining.
so if I were to add another video card for crossfire, the 2 PCIex1 slots running at [x1] wouldn't be available for use? I was reading on other threads how if you were to add a sound card for instance it would be eating up the cpu bandwith allocated to your gpu (in the case that your cpu only offers 16 PCI-E lanes)?
 
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raisonjohn

raisonjohn

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That's correct. Plugging another GPU in the PCIe x16 slot (PCIEX4) will disable both the (PCIEX1_1) and (PCIEX1_2) PCIe x1 slots.

An instance where plugging a Sound Card to a PCIe slot will result in eating up the CPU bandwidth allocated to your GPU is if the Motherboard supports [x16] and [x8/x8] PCIe configurations on the two PCIe x16 slots and you plugged the Sound Card in that second slot.

In our case, the two PCIe x16 slots of the Gigabyte H97 Gaming 3 motherboard only supports [x16] and [x16/x4] PCIe configuration (where the first slot always runs at x16 even when the other slot is populated whether by a sound card or a video card as the second slot is controlled by the PCH and not the CPU) - that's why this specific motherboard only allows for a 2-Way AMD CrossFire [x16/x4] (and not SLI which requires a minimum of x8 in any slot to run).

So, since doing CrossFire in the Gigabyte H97 Gaming 3 will disable the other PCIex1 slots, you are left with the PCI's as the only available slots for you to plug in a Sound Card (not a PCIe).
 
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