cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

2-way SLI and 3x 960 Pro possible ?

Mappi75
Level 8
Hello,

i want to know:

can i use my 2-way SLI (gtx 1080ti) @16 PCI Lanes and three Samsung 960 Pro nvme at the same time?

Or did the sli run only @8x ?

CPU is 7980XE with 44 pci lanes.

Thank you very much.
4,313 Views
10 REPLIES 10

Georgia
Level 7
Hi i run 2-way sli (GTX 1080ti's) @ x16 with 3 Samsung pro nvme drives.
1 in Mobo and the other 2 in the Dimm.2 adapter on the R6E.
CPU is 7900x with 44 pci lanes.
Hope this helps.

Mappi75
Level 8
Great, thanks for the info!

But the Samsungs will run at full speed?

Mappi75 wrote:
Great, thanks for the info!

But the Samsungs will run at full speed?


Can you please post up full specs.

My guess to your answer with limited knowledge is whether or not they run at full speed is a matter of precise what you are doing and how the 960s are assigned. You have 44 lanes to use but thats 44 lanes for everything. Keep in mind that with what you are proposing something will be sharing bandwidth at some point regardless of the configuration. Some lanes must feed the PCH.

Post up your specs and more help can be offered into how your lanes will be allocated and what resources will be shared.



“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, I'm not sure about the former” ~ Albert Einstein

Mappi75
Level 8
My system:

Intel Core i9-7980XE @ Noctua NH-D15S | ASUS ROG Rampage VI Extreme | MSI GTX 1080 Ti Lightning Z SLI | G.Skill 128GB RAM, DDR4-3200, CL14 | Samsung SSD 960 PRO 2TB | 2x Samsung SSD 840 PRO (512GB) + 2x Samsung SSD 830 (512GB) | Plextor PX-L890SA | Corsair AX1500i Titanium | Lian Li TYR PC-X2000F @bequiet Silentwings USC |

The question is:

will the SLI and 3 Samsung 960 Pro work with full bandwidth (all @full speed) at all and the same time?

ATM i only use one 960 pro ssd so i have to buy new ones (so i cant test it by my own).

Dont want to raid them - only single drives only.

CSN7
Level 7
Random question: Is one of your lightning Z from germany ? 😄

Mappi75
Level 8
Nobody knows the answer?

Marko911
Level 8
Mappi75 wrote:
Hello,

i want to know:

can i use my 2-way SLI (gtx 1080ti) @16 PCI Lanes and three Samsung 960 Pro nvme at the same time?

Or did the sli run only @8x ?

CPU is 7980XE with 44 pci lanes.

Thank you very much.

First and thrid PCIe slot for GPUs in SLI=32 lanes,and than you have 8 more lanes for dimm.2 slot for 2 Nvme's ,and one needs to go on mobo m.2 that is routed trough PCH ,CPU gives PCH 4 lanes,so m.2 on mobo will not run as fast as the two m.2 on dimm.2 slots,because 4 lanes are shared.Hope this helps.

Couple of questions are you running RAID or just 3 separate drives, second question are you running VROC, by Default the DIMM.2 runs VROC. If you are running separate drives and the DIMM.2 is running VROC you have no issues with bandwidth. 32xPCIe lanes with 2 GPUs 1st and third slots. The MB NVMe slot is running PCH that's x4. And the DIMM.2 is running x4. That's using the full 44 lanes. Now if you switch the DIMM.2 to PCH you have a bandwidth problem and especially if you also run RAID when doing that. No MB I know can have 3 NVMe drives on PCH in RAID and can handle the bandwidth requirements. You barely get any extra performance gain from the third drive. With all 3 drives on PCH, if you run three separate drives, you will never hit all three simultaneously normally so no bandwidth issues really. And lets get real most of your operations are at 4K random reads/writes low queue depth the slowest mode the drives operate in so no real issues any combination. Large file copies and such are the only real things that swallow large bandwidth.

Doesn't X299 with i9 7900X and above have 44 PCIe lanes direct to CPU,
and 24 through the PCH?