Gigabyte G1.Assassin Motherboard
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The north bridge of the Intel X58 chipset provides 36 PCI Express x1 lanes, while the south bridge (ICH10R) provides six more lanes.
The first PCI Express x16 slot (PCIEX16_1) works at x16 speed if the second one (PCIEX8_1) is empty. If it is populated, both slots work at x8 speed. The third and the fourth PCI Express x16 slots work the same way. So, if you install two video cards, you must install one at the first PCI Express x16 slot (PCIEX16_1) and the other one at the third PCI Express x16 slot (PCIEX16_2), so both of them will work at x16 speed. If you install four PCI Express x16 cards, all of them will work at x8 speed.
The PCI Express x16 slots are placed with one slot between them. This means that you can install video cards that occupy two slots in the first three PCI Express x16 slots and you will still be able to use the next PCI Express x16 slot (of course, in this case you “kill” the PCI Express x1 and PCI slots). You will be able to install a VGA that uses more than one slot at the last PCI Express x16 slot only if your case provides space for that.
The PCI Express x16 slots support both two, three, or four way CrossFireX and two or three way SLI.
As can be seen in Figure 2, there are also two PCI Express x1 slots and one standard PCI slot.
Two peripheral power connectors can be installed on the motherboard in order to provide extra current to the PCI Express x16 slots.
Figure 2: Slots