GGTV-Jon

jimbo78
Im building a 2 way sli setup with the x299 dark motherboard and for the time being will have x2 1070 cards and the intel core i7 7800x  and i want to run x2 samsung 860 evo series m.2 2280 1 TB each on the board for starters.
Anyways i want to space out my 2 cards more then 1 card slot, i want to use PE1 and have the other on PE4 instead of having the second on PE2. The reason is im water cooling both cards and want alittle more space between them will this board alow me to do this or im i stuck with only PE1 and PE2 slot placements?
Also will i be able to utilize both m.2 slots with my i7 7800x series cpu with sli on or only one of them?
thank you for any help
here is a pic of the start of project "Mini Fridge"

 
Welcome to the forums Jimbo78
 
There is a good break down of CPU PCIe lane distribution on pages 27 and 28 of the manual PDF
 
Information on your CPU -
 
Download page for EVGA product manuals -
 
From page 27 of the manual:

PCIe Lane Distribution (Core™ i7-78xx, 28 Lane Processors)

PE1 – x16 (Gen3, x16 lanes from CPU, x8 shared with PE2)
PE2 – x16 (Gen3, x8 lanes from CPU, shares 8 of PE1’s 16 lanes)
PE3 – x16 (Not functional on 28 lane processors)
PE4 – x16 (Gen3, x8 lanes from CPU)
PE5 – x4 (Gen3, x4 lanes from PCH)
PE6 – x16 (Gen3, x4 lanes from PCH)
o Must be enabled in BIOS, which disables M.2 80mm

 
From page 28 of the manual:

PCIe Lane Distribution (Core™ i7-78xx, 28 Lane Processors)

U.2(PU1) x4 PCIe Gen 3 lanes
o Must be enabled in BIOS, which disables M.2 110mm

U.2(PU2) (44 Lane CPU ONLY)

M.2 Key-M (110mm) PM1 – x4 PCIe Gen 3 lanes from CPU
o Supports PCIe/NVMe only
o Must be enabled in BIOS, which disables U.2(PU1)

M.2 Key-M (80mm) PM2 – x4 PCIe Gen 3 lanes from PCH
o Supports Optane™/PCIe/NVMe
o Must be enabled in BIOS, which disables PE6

M.2 Key-E (32mm) – x1 PCH lane

 
As seen in the PCIe slot break down above with that 28lane CPU you will only have 16 lanes available on slot one, the rest will be 8 lanes or less, and the PM2 M.2 slot will be on the PCH
 
To really use the board to it's full potential you need to get an 44 lane CPU
 
 
NOTE: The M.2 drive CANNOT be an M.2 Sata - quick google search was showing the 860 evo series m.2 2280 1TB as an M.2 SATA - DOES NOT WORK on this board, there is a typo in the manual.
This is why I put some of the M.2 information above in bold
 
Edit note 2: Make sure you read this thread -  
If you have not already done it remove the rest of the shrouds while you have the board out of the case and covers off for M.2 access and check / replace the CMOS battery
Having to remove the board and pull the covers after having it too a running state is no fun.
If you can it is best to use the bench board and soft tubing on the cooling system to bench the system and get the OS installed prior to getting it all fitted in the case to insure that everything is good to go

GGTV-Jon
 jimbo78 when you get the system completed start a new thread and show us some pictures, build looks good so far

jimbo78

GGTV-Jon
 jimbo78 when you get the system completed start a new thread and show us some pictures, build looks good so far

I will do that for sure!
Im getting very close now, on the cpu side im using a all in one setup temporarily but doing the full gpu water cooling build and will be ordering what i need to finish the cpu side later, i should be getting the rest of my parts in this week to finish the water cooling setup on my gpu side.
I went with
i9-9820x cpu
gskill sniper x series 64g ddr4 3000 memory
x2 crucial 1tb nvme m.2s
x2 evga gtx 1070 8gb
evga 1200w PSU
I havent installed windows yet but ive played around in bios abit.
 

GGTV-Jon
 jimbo78 when you get the system completed start a new thread and show us some pictures, build looks good so far

• without rgb
• without realtec audio codec
• no bug bios
• no problem with hot vrm
• clear cmos easy
• ATX 24pin angled
• triple bios
• protection with plastic in the nvme (humidity and sea air where I live)

KimbaWLion
 
The ONLY thing the X299 Dark lacks is a 3.1 input so I can hook up my USB 3.1 C port in the front.

Sajin

BadBertie
From what I understand form the available material, U.2 (PU1) and U.2 (PU2) can be populated without affecting the above PE1,2,4,6 availability/lanes?

I'm guessing you're talking about the x299 dark board? If so, it would seem one of the slots wouldn't work when using a 44 lane skylake-x cpu as both pu1 and pu2 pull x4 lanes from the cpu itself according to the manual. With pe1, pe2, pe4 & pe6 populated you would be using 40 pci-e lanes from the cpu leaving only 4 available for only one of the pu slots to work. With a Cascade Lake-X 48 lane cpu both pu slots should work in theory as 8 pci-e lanes would still would be available.

Cool GTX

Sajin

BadBertie
From what I understand form the available material, U.2 (PU1) and U.2 (PU2) can be populated without affecting the above PE1,2,4,6 availability/lanes?

I'm guessing you're talking about the x299 dark board? If so, it would seem one of the slots wouldn't work when using a 44 lane skylake-x cpu as both pu1 and pu2 pull x4 lanes from the cpu itself according to the manual. With pe1, pe2, pe4 & pe6 populated you would be using 40 pci-e lanes from the cpu leaving only 4 available for only one of the pu slots to work. With a Cascade Lake-X 48 lane cpu both pu slots should work in theory as 8 pci-e lanes would still would be available.

PCIe mapping found in this:  https://xdevs.com/guide/e299ocg/