PCIe x16 and PCIe x8 at the same time?? CONFUSED!

[mattknows]

I have a question that I seem to find conflicting information from in the manual and the specs online for the GA-MA790GP-DS4H that I just got. Online specs say that you can have both a x16 card in and an x8 card at the same time. I want to put my GeForce 7950 GT (x16) and install a new RAID card that does RAID 5 (Areca, most likely, or Adaptec). They call for an x8 slot. Now the manual for the mobo says I can use either the 1 PCIe 16x slot or use both slots and get 2 PCIe X8 out of them. Which is it?

Don't want to drop the 350 on the card only to find out it doesn't work.


I really appreciate any insight any one can provide.

 

[mikrev007]

The issue: The x16 and x8 shares the same x16 bus.

So when you install two cards, they will each be given access to x8

 

[bilbat]

...but it will work fine - most video cards don't come near to filling the bandwidth available to a PCIe 2.0 x16 channel; be aware, though, that most PCIe RAID cards have known problems should you wish to switch to a "X2" type card...