SLi x 2 Mobo, w/ a third PCIe x16 for what?

[schafer68]

So, this is my new motherboard: http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?p_id=am2rchl84mzrkh6j

It has

2 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (dual at x16/x16 mode)
1 x PCIe x16 (at x4 mode) <--- what is this for?!
2 x PCIe x1
1 x PCI

I don't believe it is a Triple SLi motherboard, but can I drop a third GPU into that slot and expect to obtain some benefit, such as offloading PhsX calculations to it, or whatnot?

[Delphium]

You have that pritty much summed up, you cant use it for Tri-SLI but you could use it for an independent gfx card for offloading physx, could also be used for raid cards and other such bandwidth hungry devices.

You dont even need anything too beefy for the physx card, I use an 8800GTS and have shown here the difference it can make compared to using the CPU when there is no dedicated physx GPU.

[schafer68]

Awesome, thanks for the quick reply with explanation.

I actually had 3 fan blades drop off on one of my GTX 460s, (what's that noise? Oh... dear,) so I am ordering a 3rd card to cover the 2nd as it goes for an RMA replacement...

And so I'll end up with a 3rd once that's all said and done, and I figure I'll keep it for a 3rd PhyX card.