Computing desk
< February 12	<< Jan \| February \| Mar >>	February 14 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Computing Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

February 13

mATX motherboards bottom connectors are blocked when 2 dual-slot graphics cards are installed

The title describes itself. There is no problem in this Asus Maximus VIII Gene, because its 2 PCIe slots are located at expansion slot 1 and 3. But the majority of micro-ATX sized motherboards have the 2nd PCIe slot located at slot 4, like this MSI B150M Night Elf.

If 2 graphics cards are installed, with the one at the 2nd PCIe slot being dual-width, the connectors at the bottoms of mATX motherboards are effectively blocked, except for those which follows the Asus Gene's slot distribution. What is the purpose of such motherboard design?

P.S: It is somewhat irrelevant, but I have noticed that the Asus Gene run 2 graphics cards at x8/x8, while those such as the MSI Night Elf runs them at x16/x4. I thought they were not designed to run 2 graphics cards at first, but after digging through their specifications, they all support 2-way CrossFireX and/or SLI. Livy (talk) 10:40, 13 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The M/B ist designed to fit every used component on this from factor. I do not see any electrical reason not to use the slot. If to is the same bus, a shorter slot will occupy the bus longer time for the same data transfer. If You need the slot, look for something like a riser card. --Hans Haase (有问题吗) 15:29, 16 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]