I'm currently running an HD6870 graphics card for graphics and a GTS 450 for PhysX support as well as extra monitor outputs. Earlier today I was using an HD4830 instead of the GTS 450, and when I attempted to test the GTS 450 in PCI-E slot 3 (the blue PCI-E 2.0 x8 slot) while leaving the HD4830 in PCI-E4 things did not go well as Windows did not detect it.
Now, I understand that the purpose of both the chip and the molex connector are to set the motherboard up to function in CrossFire/SLI mode, but I'd like to know exactly what each component does to do that because of the issues I had when trying to run 3 PCI-E graphics cards that weren't in CrossFire/SLI.
At the time I saw no point in taking either the step of plugging in a molex power cable or flipping the chip because I wasn't attempting to run anything in CrossFire/SLI configuration. Now I'm simply curious as to what needs to be done to use PCI-E3 in a multi-GPU configuration regardless of whether or not I'm using a CrossFire/SLI setup.
Now, I understand that the purpose of both the chip and the molex connector are to set the motherboard up to function in CrossFire/SLI mode, but I'd like to know exactly what each component does to do that because of the issues I had when trying to run 3 PCI-E graphics cards that weren't in CrossFire/SLI.
At the time I saw no point in taking either the step of plugging in a molex power cable or flipping the chip because I wasn't attempting to run anything in CrossFire/SLI configuration. Now I'm simply curious as to what needs to be done to use PCI-E3 in a multi-GPU configuration regardless of whether or not I'm using a CrossFire/SLI setup.