Motherboard with low pci-e x16 slot

Imake&IsellSoap · 24 Oct 2012 at 23:56

Ok guys, can anyone recommend a sub £200 lga 1155 (cheaper the better) where there is a pcie 16 slot at the bottom is right at the bottom of the motherboard, or very close (eg ASUS SABERTOOTH P67) and can overclock. Would also prefer it standard atx size.

Problem is a lot of them are only x4 at the bottom and and need x16 for a little experiment of mine. Any recommendations?

mickyflinn · 25 Oct 2012 at 12:46

I dont believe there are any 1155 motherboards that have x16 slot at the bottom, in crossfire or sli it will be x8 x8.

Imake&IsellSoap · 25 Oct 2012 at 13:14

Sorry I should mention I found a couple, or at least I think I have, would appreciate if you could verify it for me though.

MSI Z77A-GD65
ASUS MAXIMUS V GENE*

*Now I said I would prefer standard atx... but, I do not know if anyone could answer me this or if I should start a new thread on it but I would like to know if there is someone who owns:

1 Asus Maximus gene V
2 Has either a Phanteks PH-TC14PE or a Noctua nh-d14
3 A graphics card

Can they measure if there is enough room to mount either of these cpu coolers vertically and not impede the SECOND pcie slot of the Maximus Gene V?

Imake&IsellSoap · 25 Oct 2012 at 13:22

mickyflinn said:
I dont believe there are any 1155 motherboards that have x16 slot at the bottom, in crossfire or sli it will be x8 x8.

What would happen if you put a GTX 690 or a 7990 say in the bottom slot and left the top unpopulated on such boards?

RJC · 25 Oct 2012 at 13:27

Both of the boards run the last slot as 4x.

The slots are limited to these regardless if the first one is in use or not.

Imake&IsellSoap · 25 Oct 2012 at 13:41

RJC said:
Both of the boards run the last slot as 4x.

The slots are limited to these regardless if the first one is in use or not.

Damn, this is really annoying. So there is not any board that can run x16 with its lowest slot?

Also, as I suggested before, when boards say dual x8 for SLI/Crossfire, does this mean if you put a single dual GPU card in the bottom slot if will run x8?

RJC · 25 Oct 2012 at 13:46

Imake&IsellSoap said:
Damn, this is really annoying. So there is not any board that can run x16 with its lowest slot?

Also, as I suggested before, when boards say dual x8 for SLI/Crossfire, does this mean if you put a single dual GPU card in the bottom slot if will run x8?

That's correct, I can't remember the performance hit, I think it's around 3%.

There are some boards which can do dual 16 x but I need to search.

Imake&IsellSoap · 25 Oct 2012 at 15:04

RJC said:
That's correct, I can't remember the performance hit, I think it's around 3%.

There are some boards which can do dual 16 x but I need to search.

OK I just found an article on techpowerup regarding pcie scaling with gtx 680 and 7970 and found it to be about 1-2% performance hit in 1920x1200 between x16 and x8 3.0. There is even only a 2% hit at that resolution at x4 compared to x16 with a 7970 (though 5% with a gtx 680) so I am bit less concerned about the bottom slot, especially with amd cards.

Just to clarify, are there boards that will run a single card at x8 in the bottom slot?