Hey y'all, I think I finally want to move to PCIe Gen4, and I want PE1 to be running at full 16x.
 
This gets confusing to me so I need some help clarifying.
 
 I need all three pci slots, I use pci audio (I KNOW this board has audio, but I can hear the difference) and I need that third slot as well.
 
 From what I can see in the user's guide, I can have an M.2 in the first and second M.2 ports (2 - M.2's total), and my 3080 in PE1, and my sound card in PE2 and STILL use PE3 without losing PCIe x16 on PE1.. Is this correct?? 
 
I THINK in the FTW guide it says that I put ANYTHING in PE2 that PE1 will default to 8x8, BUT, the Dark board doesn't say that.  IF I am reading it correctly.
 
thanks for any advice.
Rob

Using PE2 will switch PE1 to x8 mode on both motherboards.

why do you need all three PE slots?  sound card + GPU + ?