pci-e sli question on z97

[bipolarbear]

Hi, I've got a Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 7 motherboard with 2 GTX780's in SLI, both running at x8. I purchased a dual nic Intel Pro/1000PT server card with the intention or bonding the connnections to my netgear smart switch. This card has a pci-e x4 connector. I inserted the card into the one remaining pcie x4 slot, the second GTX780 then dropped its speed to x4 and I lost SLI. I checked the motherboard manual and this is documented behaviour, there doesnt seem to be a way to manually configure the second gfx card to x8 when there's something in the bottom slot.

Just wondering is this something peculiar to this motherboard? or it is a chipset/z97 thing? should i be looking at a different motherboard or chipset?

thanks!

edit: apparently one way is to cut/mod one of the pci-e x1 slots so it can take a x4 card - just dremel out the notch at the end - and it *may* work depending on the card.... worth a shot maybe.

 

[bipolarbear]

Too late - I did it, and it works lol... I think pci-e x1 has more than enough bandwidth for 2 gigabit ports, a quad would be pushing it though i think.

Strange that the UD3H is different to the Gaming-7 in that respect though, I wouldn't have thought there was much between them feature-wise.

Unrelated question - is a single 980Ti faster than my 2 EVGA 780 Hydro Coppers in SLI?

 

[bipolarbear]

I'm teaming the 2 intel interfaces into one 2Gb bonded interface via 802.3ad link aggregration. Interestingly the Intel software gives me the option to include the onboard interface in the team even though its a realtec adapter... but I'm not sure how well that would work so i have left it out. 2 interfaces is enough anyway.