Tomorrow my system completes 5 days of isolation so I can now get started.
I have a x299-Sage (ASUS) Mobo which has 7 PCIE x16 (YES, 7!!!) Slots, so my plan is:
3090 in top slot
Titan in 5th Slot
PCIE Extendor coming out of 7th slot for my 2080Ti
Wifi Card in 3rd Slot
I still might have to swap the Extendor and Wifi card-we’ll see.
I’ve a 10940x which means the 2080Ti will be on x8 lanes- which is still amazing! I’m not sure if I’d want to plug in a second M.2 since it might lead to the 2080Ti being on x4 lanes? (I haven’t done my math)
mmhh, you should see the mb’s specifications. Lane distribution topology given a specific processor varies. Some slot will run x16, some x8 and some others could even drop to x4
You’ll go at 8x on that slot no matter what, and that’s not by the virtue of the processor, which just supports 48 lanes. The mainboard got two Broadcom PLX switches, as you may see on the diagram.
The m.2 and the u.2 will always go at maximum speed. As for the slots, You can have 16x/16x/16x/16x if you use just the grey slots, or 16x/8x/8x/8x/8x/8x/8x if you use all the slots.
All of the above with a 48 lanes processor, like yours (they become 96 lanes).
They guarantee your slots will run at no less than 8x no matter what, and the same goes for the m.2/u.2 ports. That’s thanks to the PLX switches, that effectively double the lane amount provided by the processor. The lanes by the PCH stay the same.
If you still are unsure, take a x299/c422 motherboard whatsoever without the pcie switches, and look at the specs. They will mention that lane bandwidth is shared between the slots and/or with m.2 ports, due to lane scarcity.
Wherever you want. No GPU will fall at 4x.
As you wish. It will not eat up slot bandwidth, nor will it drop at 2x.
In this topology, they are supplied by the mb, but even if they were supplied by the cpu, there are plenty of them thanks to the PLX.
They eat up lanes provided by the chipset. Then, it communicates with the CPU by DMI.
Bottom line: do not worry. Plug in every piece of hardware you want into this board. No GPU will drop below 8x.
It makes sense now! The PLX Switch act as if PCIE lanes are supplied in parallel and not in series
I was kind of hoping to run the second GPU at x16 (for no reason) but I don’t think my CPU has that many lanes
Now it makes sense-I was getting confused w my Z270 mobo-I was assuming that if I plug it into a slot that would cause the single lane for wifi card to come out of the 8 lanes, but the PLX switches are life-saver
Noted!
Now I’m just waiting for my 20 CM riser cable order-to be chained with another 25 cm riser cable and then the build is complete
Since yours are non-ecc, unregistered dimms (x299 does not support ecc rdimms), you can safely mix them, at least if they have the same number of ranks (but they could work even with different ranks, if you place them correctly). Check it, the label should report something like “2Rx4”.
Put the 32gb dimms in the grey or black slots. Put the other dimms in the slots marked with the other color. Try to respect that ordering, particularly if the memory modules do have different number of ranks.
Your observations are not stupid. On the contrary, I’m accustomed to server/workstation memory, which have a label upon their chips, and I took it for granted about yours too.
These damn gaming memory manufacturers do not report their rank distribution… Look:
That’s why I usually stay away from gaming hardware.
Note that they have different SPD speeds (the SPD informs the mb about the memory specs).
I’m still pretty convinced that they’ll work, however. Just try. All the memory will be probably set to the lowest speed. Worst case scenario, the system won’t boot, or it will boot, but you shall experiment moderate to severe instability.
Nothing will be broken, though. In such case, just remove the second set (black slots), and reboot.
Thanks! In all my time spent reading subreddits and blogs upon blogs I was worried if I missed all these details
I’ll try and share what happens, the issue/reason I’m measuring twice before cutting is-the CPU radiator (360mm) is mounted on top and is partially blocking the RAM Slots, I’m sure I can manage my way around and insert the RAM but taking it out might require unmounting the rad-which would be a lot of work
Don’t want to give unrequested advice but… In the future try and stay away from gaming stuff. It’s not intended for serious applications. Reliability should be preferred over speed, and in any case you can have both by choosing with care. Good luck with your experiments
I actually tried the BIOS options and forgot the most important trick of Engineering : Plugging and Unplugging. That made it work
So now I have The 3090 and Titan and 192GB RAM in XMP (3200Mhz) Setup. I’m still need to do some testing for temps, they do have a PCIe slot space in between.
Just the final riser cable remains for the 2080Ti addition
I think it will suffice. Mind that the Titan is the worst of the lot in terms of overheating attitude. Place it accordingly (I’d say into the lowest slot, but then the other cards will suckle its heat… Do some testing).
I tried investigating-all of the SATA Ports are enabled, not sure what happened 
