x99 classified pcie device arrangemet

Hey guys, so I'm going to be building a x99 classy board. I know for sure im going to be using 2 evga titan x superclock's in sli and an m.2 ssd for the OS drive. And then probably a raid card, a pcie nvme ssd, and possibly something else.

So, I know ideally I would want the 2 titans in the top slots and thats most likely what will happen. However, I was thinking, how bad would performance be if I stuck the titans in slots 4 and 6? Since slot 5 (x4) is already disabled due to the m.2 being used I wouldn't cover up any "useful" pcie slots, where as using the titans in slot 1 and 2 I would lose access to slot 3.


So what do you guys think? How badly would performance be hindered by using slot 4 and 6 for graphics cards?

Find out how the lanes break down, and if its 8x, then you will only lose 1-2%.

Why two Titan X's? How many monitors are you using or running 4K?

EarthDog said:

Find out how the lanes break down, and if its 8x, then you will only lose 1-2%.

Why two Titan X's? How many monitors are you using or running 4K?

Click to expand...

Gotcha ill have to take a look, I believe I read somewhere that slot 4 can support full x16 but ill have to double check, and I'm almost positive slot 6 will only do x8.

I'm going with 2 titan x's to support 4 monitors, 3 paired as one and a 4th used as auxilary. So total resolution will be around 6000x2560, I haven't gotten around to figuring the exact number with bezel correction calculated.

And as I know the question will come up, its a heavy gaming rig with moderate use for video editing/PhotoShop and possible streaming in the future(that part is undecided).

Here's the pcie lane distribution as per evga:

PCI-E Lane Distribution (40 Lane Processor)
•PE1 – x16 (x8 if PE2 is used)
•PE2 – x8
•PE3 – x8
•PE4 – x16 (x8 if PE3 is used)
•PE5 – x4 (Gen 2 only, 4 lanes pulled from PCH)
•PE6 – x8

Why not lane PE1-x16 and PE4 -x16 room permitting it would help with cooling and leave 3 lanes @ x8 for other items? But depends on your case size and other items?