What does pcie x8/x16 mean on an ICH0R MB?

[ironic_sobriquet]

if there are three PCIe slots and the first slot is just PCIe x16 and another one says x8/x16... what gives?
I'm only going to be using 2 of the ports... and I know the x58 chipset is limited to 36 pipe lines... so If I'm going to be using 32 of them that means I should get full x16 and x16 on both cards right? or am I overlooking something?

 

[chefboyeb]

Yep, you should get x16 on both cards... If you decided to go triple xfire or sli though, the second running at x16 would seize to do so and would share it's allocated bandwidth with the 3rd giving you x16,x8,x8...

 

[flyinfinni]

Right- if you are running 2 cards, they would both run at x16. It would only drop the second card to x8 if you added a 3rd graphics card. No need to worry about that

 

[abhishekk89]

as others have already pointed out...

single grpahics card - x16
dual graphics card - x16 x16
triple graphics card - x16 x8 x8
quad graphics card - x8 x8 x8 x8

 

[ironic_sobriquet]

Best answer selected by ironic_sobriquet.