EVGA X299 DARK Owner's Manual page 20

EVGA X299 DARK (151-SX-E299)
13. M.2 Socket 3 Key-M 80mm (PM2)
M.2 is an SSD standard, which uses up to four PCIe lanes and utilizes Gen3
speeds. Most popularly paired with NVMe SSDs, this standard offers
substantially faster transfer speeds and seek time than SATA interface standards.
All M.2 devices are designed to connect via a card-bus style connector and be
bolted into place and powered by the connector, rather than by a dedicated data
cable and power cable.
This socket will support Key-M devices of 80mm, 60mm, and 42mm length.
This connector can utilize only PCIe/NVMe-based M.2 SSDs, SATA M.2, or
Intel Optane
®
14. PCIe Slot x16/x8*
PCIe x16/x8 slots are primarily used for video cards. These full-length slots
will provide 8 or 16 lanes of bandwidth to a full-size card, and are backwards-
compatible with x8, x4, and x1-length cards.
Skylake-X Socket LGA2066 processors have 44 or 28 PCIe lanes available for
routing, whereas Kaby Lake-X has 16 PCIe lanes.
15. PCIe Slot x8*
PCIe x8 slots are primarily used for video cards, and share lanes from adjacent
x16 slots, when populated. These full-length slots will provide 8 lanes of
bandwidth to a full-size card, and are backwards-compatible with x8, x4, and
x1-length cards.
Skylake-X Socket LGA2066 processors have 44 or 28 PCIe lanes available for
routing, whereas Kaby Lake-X has 16 PCIe lanes.
16. PCIe Slot x8/4*
PCIe x8/4 slot can be used for video cards or other devices. PE6, the only
x8/x4 slot on the board, receives either x8 lanes from the CPU (Page 27) or x4
from the PCH, depending upon the CPU used and peripheral configuration.
These full-length slots will provide up to 8 lanes of bandwidth to a full-size card,
and are backwards-compatible with x8, x4, and x1-length cards.
Skyake-X Socket LGA2066 processors have 44 or 28 PCIe lanes available for
routing, whereas Kaby Lake-X has 16 PCIe lanes.
17. PCIe Slot x4*
PCIe x4 slot PE5 uses up to 4 Gen 3 lanes from the PCH. This slot is typically
used for sound cards, WiFi, USB, LAN or other peripheral cards.
NVMe devices.
™
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