Right now I am using Slot 1 and slot 3. I see on GPUz I am only getting 8x and not 16x, even under load on the second card? Do I need to be running on different slots. I do have the external 6 pin adapter plugged into the bottom of the board to power the PLX chip. I also have issue with the kernal crashing and recover in windows. blah blah, screen blacks out for a few seconds and it runs again. I am thinking maybe one of my cards doesnt have enough voltage. They are not OC'd at the moment. and running at 855mhz. I just installed this motherboard tonight. However I ran these cards on a 790I ultra motherboard for months before this, and had the saming kernal crashing problems, which is why i suspect it is under powered? One card runs at 1131mv and the secondary runs at 1118mv. I see in precision X that the secondary card downclocks to 50mhz and volts drop to 962mv in windows. Could this be part of the issue?
 
Thanks

I tried slots 2 and 4 when I first built the system, but my graphics card would not display on the monitor, so I moved them to Slots 1 and 3.

GTX580 Classified 3GB Air Cooler

Yes, air cooled... Would love to go water on this new system, but don't want to mess around trying to find all the water blocks and accessories to make it all work, nor pay the hefty price tag. Compaired to the 3770K the GPU's stay relitvley cool.

I wish that card too much, I can't look any more.
Cards are brutal. And they look exactly what I like.
Never mind for watercooling, that's good. 
 
Maybe is  better to invest in some new Intel architecture, soon.
CPU - Motherboard - RAM (Intel - EVGA - CORSAIR) and leave everything else like now.
 
 

 

For sure, upgrading is always fun right. :)

Yes special for me and my luck with HW. 
But now I am happy with my new upgrade and I continue,
easy because no jobs in my country and no money and hard to find EVGA and CORSAIR but easy I upgrade one buy one.
RAM - Graphic - SSD (CORSAIR - EVGA - CORSAIR)and upgrade done, not account cooler H100, because that come for few days,

 
 
 
 

So looking around it appears I should be using slot 2 and 4 but running the monitor cables from the card plugged into slot 4?

If you use slot 2+4 connect your monitor to the card in slot 4.

EVGA_MatthewH


If you use slot 2+4 connect your monitor to the card in slot 4.

This is true for most SLI setups using these slots.  I don't know why but its been discussed and pointed out.  However, if you want to use slot 2, just wait while the OS boots up and the screen will pop up eventually.   Doesn't help for getting into the bios though.

Thanks, I will Switch things around and use slot 4 for the video cables

slots 2 & 4 produce higher scores in benchmarks, just remember to connect monitor to the secondary card (bottom, slot #4), because the card in slot #2 currently won't give you display in BIOS.
 
when running cards in slots 1 & 3, all works normally, but there is less lanes assigned to cards, so benchmarking scores go down (around 5% when compared to 2 & 4).

Good to know, I have been running them in 2 & 4 for a few days now, seems to be working well.