processor for 3-way sli

[kidmo87]

Hey everyone. I have been using one evga 980ti sc and am looking to upgrade to 2-way sli and possibly 3-way sli in the future.
However, I read that the processor i have(i5 6600k) is not good for 3-way sli. From what i read, it has to do with pci express lanes of the processor? I think.
So what im trying to figure out is, if this is true, how many pci express lanes for the processor do i need for 3-way sli?
And if my information is wrong, what would be the requirements from a processor to run 3-way sli with no issues.
Thanks

 

[PP Mguire]

1 word, don't. Keep it to 2 way, and the 6600k is perfectly fine for that.

 

[kidmo87]

I was actually leaning on staying with 2-way. The performance wouldnt be much better for the price?
Or will i just run into a lot of problems?

 

[PP Mguire]

Both, including heat and power issues. As somebody who's ran 3 Titan X's previously, it's not worth it. There are a couple games that utilize it but the headaches and personal perspiration was a nightmare. You can top that off with Nvidia pretty much killing support for 3 and 4 way across the board (it'll work just not officially support anymore) there's no point in bothering unless you just want to play around with 3dmark.

 

[kidmo87]

Thanks for the info. Just going to stay at 2-way sli.
Thanks for always being the one to help me out on here.

 

[PP Mguire]

No problem, also the Z170 classified has 4 way support for 1151 CPUs

 

[kidmo87]

Thanks, but could you explain to me the concept of this?
Like what must my processor have for 2-way, 3-way, or even 4-way to not bottleneck?

 

[PP Mguire]

The CPU only has so many lanes, certain motherboards have chips called PEX switches which "give" additional lanes to support more cards. The drawback being there's usually some latency involved. On top of that, 3 and 4 way SLI require a seriously overclocked processor to increase throughput to the cards.

 

[kidmo87]

ok, Im getting it now.
Thanks

 

[PP Mguire]

Got anymore questions just ask away.