MSI Z97 Xpower SLI PCI Speed

[thegamer36]

I have an MSI Z97 Xpower Motherboard running dual 780ti's. When I use HWInfo64 it says one card is running at 16x and the other is running at 8x. According to MSI this motherboard supports 16x/16x when the graphics cards are installed in e1 and e5 slots. I also have a sound card in an x1 slot. Any ideas on why I am not getting 16x/16x?

Thanks.

 

[thegamer36]

I removed the sound card and I am getting the same 16x/8x...so I eliminated that.

 

[LTC8K6]

I don't know why it is happening, but IIRC, 8X is unnoticeable speed wise vs 16X.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I don't know why it is happening, but IIRC, 8X is unnoticeable speed wise vs 16X.

When I run NVidia Inspector, the item on the left middle of the program window, the specification changes with the degree of usage. In my case, the board is PCI-E 3.0 capable, but the Sandy Bridge processor may limit it. But the phenomenon I described has nothing to do with that.

 

[nenforcer]

The Intel Z87 / Z97 chipset itself only supports x16 or x8 / x8 for Crossfire / SLI UNLESS it has the PLX chip.

If you've got x16 / x8 that's still better than advertised. If your stressing both graphics cards is it still at x16 / x8 or does it go up to x16 / x16?

 

[PhIlLy ChEeSe]

First of all how are they set up in the BIOS? Second use GPU-Z to make sure of how they r running. Thirdly, to run in 16X16 use the first and the fourth PCI-e slots(link to spec's)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130764