Skylake processors offer great per-core performance and overclocking capability, but only have sixteen PCIe 3.0 lanes for graphics. EVGA has a solution, but is it worth the added cost?

Economics dictates why Skylake only has sixteen PCIe 3.0 lanes, as the same LGA 1151 socket is meant to serve everything from low-end office to mainstream gaming machines. If you want more than that, Intel thinks you should upgrade to a bigger processor on a more expensive board. The problem is, Intel's big processors are always clocked slower using previous-generation technology. Using client systems to work the bugs out of a core before transitioning its tech to servers might make sense to an IT manager, but performance enthusiast don't like this CPU/GPU performance dichotomy. While some resort to extreme cooling to make up for the per-core performance deficit with added clock-speed, the new cores usually clock even higher on even less cooling for far less money.