ASRock X79 Extreme9 manual Expansion Slots PCI Express Slots, Pcie Slot Configurations

2.6 Expansion Slots (PCI Express Slots)

There are 6 PCI Express slots on this motherboard.

PCIE slots:PCIE1 / PCIE2 / PCIE4 / PCIE5 / PCIE6 (PCIE 3.0 x16 slots) are used for PCI Express graphics cards.

PCIE3 (PCIE 2.0 x1 slot) is used for PCI Express cards with x1 lane width cards, such as ASRock Game Blaster, Gigabit LAN card, SATA2 card, etc.

PCIE Slot Configurations

	PCIE1	PCIE2	PCIE4	PCIE5	PCIE6
Dual Graphics Cards in	x16	x0	x16	x0	N/A
CrossFireXTM or SLITM Mode
Triple Graphics Cards in	x16	x0	x16	x0	x8
3-Way CrossFireXTM or
3-Way SLITM Mode
Five Graphics Cards	x8	x8	x8	x8	x8

1.In single VGA card mode, it is recommended to install a PCI Express x16 graphics card on PCIE1 slot.

2.In CrossFireXTM mode or SLITM mode, please install PCI Express x16 graphics cards on PCIE1 and PCIE4 slots. Therefore, both these two slots will work at x16 bandwidth.

3.In 3-Way CrossFireXTM or 3-Way SLITM mode, please install PCI Express x16 graphics cards on PCIE1, PCIE4 and PCIE6 slots. Therefore, PCIE1 and PCIE4 will work at x16 bandwidth, while PCIE6 works at x8 bandwidth.

4.If you install five PCI Express x16 graphics cards on PCIE1, PCIE2, PCIE4, PCIE5 and PCIE6 slots, these five slots will work at x8 bandwidth.

5.Please connect a chassis fan to motherboard chassis fan connector

(CHA_FAN1, CHA_FAN2 or CHA_FAN3) when using multiple graphics cards for better thermal environment.

6.Currently Intel® Socket 2011 Sandy Bridge-E Processor doesn’t support PCIE 3.0, but this motherboard is already PCIE 3.0 hardware ready. It depends on Intel’s CPU to enable PCIE 3.0. Please check Intel’s website for information on future CPU updates and releases.

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