X99 PCIe lane switching

[badboy2k]

Planning out a build and trying to figure out how to go about configuring everything properly (if I need custom BIOS). Intel i7-6850K (40 PCIe Lane)/MSI X99A Gaming Pro Carbon 2 MSI GTX 1070s, 10Gb Networking Card, MSI GT 710, and Samsung 950 Pro M.2 SSD. Trying to get the following config: PCI_E1: x8 - GTX 1070 PCI_E3: x16 - GTX 1070 PCI_E5: x8 - 10Gb Networking PCI_E6: x4 - GT 710 M.2_1: x4 - SSD Is this even possible?

that is Not possible! if you use a M.2 drive on that board the bottom X8 slot will be switched off and have Zero Lanes!

 

[rgiarusso]

Is there any way to run all four slots plus M.2 on this board?  Or is there another MSI board that could do this?

 

[flobelix]

Four slots + M.2 @ x4 is not possible on any MSI X99 board or on any other X99 board I know. MSI already has one of the most flexible solutions for X99 boards. Four slots is possible but M.2 will than just use the PCH's 2.0 x2 lanes.

 

[rgiarusso]

I think I've found a solution, at least for my case.

 X99S XPower Gaming Titanium, according to its manual, will support a 3-Way SLI config for a 40-lane CPU of:
PCI_E1 - 3.0 x8, enough for a GTX 1070
PCI_E2 - 3.0 x8, enough for a GTX 1070
PCI_E3 - 0
PCI_E4 -  3.0 x16, enough for a 10Gb Network card
PCI_E5 - 2.0 x 1, enough for a GT 710 (it's just running a 5" terminal display)
PCI_E6 - 0 
M2_1 -  3.0 x4, enough for a Samsung 950 Pro M.2 SSD

I'm just worried about airflow over the SSD, but from the looks of the chart, I think I could just swap in a U.2 drive instead.

Am I completely nuts here or could something like this actually work?

 

[flobelix]

All XPower boards share the same basic layout (X99A XPOWER GAMING TITANIUM, X99S XPOWER AC, X99A XPOWER AC). With it your updated layout would theoretically work. The GT 710 would even fit physically in the x1 slot because it's rear on this board apparently open to fit longer cards. Considering bandwith 2.0 x1 would be enough for your task for it. 

[attachthumb=1]

 

[lee@huzza.co.uk]

Do you have any high level diagrams like this for the newer X99a boards?

I'm looking at the Tomahawk and notice it switches on the first PCIe and shares bandwidth with the x8 port.

 

[flobelix]

Open an own thread for a particular question about the Tomahawk.

 

[flobelix]

PCI_E2 and E4 (PCI-E 2.0 x1 slots) don't share lanes with anything and are directly connected to the PCH. It is no lane switching problem For further support open an own topic please.

 

[enkhabarov]

Dear MSI Team,

Could you please provide me with X99A Raider PCI-E lane switching diagram? In general my question is if it's possible to use all 5 PCI-E slots as gen1 and M.2 slot at the same time?

 

[flobelix]

All slots on the X99A Raider and the M.2 can be used at the same time.  Like shown in your manual regardless if using 28 lanes or 40 lanes cpu all three Gen3 slots can be used while still providing 3.0 x4 for M.2. The x1 slots are using 2.0 x1 lanes from the PCH anywy and are not affected by slot sharing anyway.

[attachthumb=1]

 

[Moheban79]

So I've almost exclusively bought MSI products in the past, because I've never had issues and this was enough to make me stick to them... until now.

I've recently bought an entirely new system:
- Intel Core i7 6900K
- Kingston HyperX Predator DIMM Kit 16GB (x2)
- MSI X99A Gaming Pro Carbon
- MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Gaming X (x2)
- And a whole bunch of Noctua PWM fans

(Please don't assume that I'm rich or anything. I'm a student. This was a major investment for me. I've used money I saved over the course of about three years!)

Right from the start I've faced issues with the ASMEDIA USB 3 controller (*this*), but since I don't really need that many USB connections anyway, I've decided not to use them and just wait this issue to get fixed per driver update or something.

But there's another problem, that I think is way more severe. The top GTX 1080 of my SLI setup is absolutely suffocating, because MSI thought it would be a great idea to have no free space between dual slot graphic cards on the X99A Gaming Pro Carbon. Sorry for needlessly bashing the engineers of MSI, but I'm just so infuriated about this! Obviously I blame myself for this, too, I should have definitely paid more attention to this before I purchased the motherboard. Well, basically one GTX 1080 is always running up to 20?C hotter than the other one, even with all fans manually set to 100%.

Would SLI still work if I used PCI_E1 and PCI_E5 (with a sound card in PCI_E3 and an SSD in the M.2 slot)? I guess they wouldn't be running in x16 mode then? To be perfectly honest, I'm even too dumb to make sense of the graphs in this thread. And I cannot test this, because I have no SLI bridge that long and before spending about ~$20 on a SLI bridge or even $50+ on a SLI-HB bridge I thought I'd ask you guys.

Thanks in advance!

Try using a Riser Cable Card and you can still use the 2nd PCI-E slot. Just would have to mod your case to reposition the second video card. I recommend ThermalTakes Premium cables.

 

[enkhabarov]

All slots on the X99A Raider and the M.2 can be used at the same time.  Like shown in your manual regardless if using 28 lanes or 40 lanes cpu all three Gen3 slots can be used while still providing 3.0 x4 for M.2. The x1 slots are using 2.0 x1 lanes from the PCH anywy and are not affected by slot sharing anyway.

Ok, thank you. Than I have quiet strange issue. Currently in M.2 slot I have PCI-E raiser adapter and it doesn't work. Any advise? PCI Gen was set to Gen.2 in BIOS but also tried with Gen.1,but GPU attached through this riser dosn't recognized by Windows, although it works fine through any other PCI-E slot.

 

[Moheban79]

Ok, thank you. Than I have quiet strange issue. Currently in M.2 slot I have PCI-E raiser adapter and it doesn't work. Any advise? PCI Gen was set to Gen.2 in BIOS but also tried with Gen.1,but GPU attached through this riser dosn't recognized by Windows, although it works fine through any other PCI-E slot.

Your running a GPU through a M.2 to PCI-E adapter??  I don't understand how you have this configured. Please write back in more detail and what your trying to do.

 

[nathaniel.c.cooley]

I have the x99s gmaing 7 motherboard with a network card in pcie lane 4 and a msi 980 in the first PCI full slot. Will this motherboard support an NVME m.2 drive?

 

[flobelix]

I assume that you mean PCI_E4 by "pcie lane 4" if so then the M.2 slot is not affected by your setup (vga = PCI_E1 + network card = PCI_E4).

Only populating PCI_E6 would affect PCI-E lanes allocation for the M.2 slot. So you can use an M.2 at full PCI-E 3.0 x4. 

 

[phaktory]

Wow these pictures were helpful.  If only Support had given me these on my open case, I would have a better grasp.  At the same time though, it's throwing me for a loop.

I have an X99S Gaming 9 AC with a 5630K 40 lane CPU.  I'm running a single 1080 Ti video card in PCIE1.  I have an onboard m.2 NVME drive.  I have an expansion card in slot 5 with another m.2 drive.  I also have a second expansion card in slot 3 with another m.2 drive.  Slots 2 and 4 are empty. 

I want to add an El Gato x4 capture card but I can't get it to work in slots 2 or 4.  I even moved my add in card in slot 3 to slot 2.  When I did that, the capture card worked but the drive disappeared.  I don't understand why it didn't work in Slot 4 though.  According to the picture, slot 4 doesn't share its lanes.

What I'm THINKING about doing is moving my video card to slot 4 as the manual says that is the x16 slot in a 4 way SLI.  Then putting the Gato in Slot 1 and leaving the m.2 add ins in slots 3 and 5.  I don't REALLY want to do this without some kind of sanity check/assurance it's a lot of work to do that.

My other option is trying to get a PCIE card that will hold multiple m.2 drives but I don't think we have actual bifurcation as an option in the BIOS.

 

[flobelix]

Well, so you have a vga in PCI_E1 and you also populated PCI_E3. That switches both slots to x8 and disables PCI_E2 so that won't work. If you'd populate PCI_E2 PCI_E3 would be disabled. Both share the same lanes.

If you populate PCI_E5 the M.2 slot is switched to PCI-E 2.0 x2 as all PCI-E 3.0 lanes are then used for PCI_E5. A very bad idea if using an NVME drive.

PCI_E 4 on the other hand exclusively uses the other set of 16 lanes from your 40 lanes cpu and should work for that capture card. I'd try the graphics card there (would also allow it to run at x16 unlike it does now) 

 

[dixons154f02d9]

I have a MSI X99S Gaming 7 Mainboard, i7-5820K CPU and a GTX1080 GPU.

I recently came into possession of a handfull of 512GB M-key SSD drives and would like to get one of the PCIe cards to mount them on and add that storage to my machine. Is that even possible?