High PLX chip temps

[Johnnyrook82]

My setup is as follows. Maximus V Extreme mobo, intel 3770k processor, EVGA GTX 680 ftw+, Sound Blaster ZxR sound card,16 GB g.skill trident ram, cooler master HAF X case. I have my graphics card installed in my first pcie (x16) slot as per the manual with my sound card installed into the pcie2 (x4) and a firewire card plugged into the last pcie slot which is referred to as PCIe 3.0/2.0 x8_4 slot in the manual. My setup has 4 230mm fans and the CPU is cooled with a closed system cpu cooler with a dual fan radiator. All my temps are fantastic except my PLX temp when monitoring via AI Suite II. After even a short gaming session or benchmark it's gotten up to the high 50s Celcius while all other temps except GPU are below 40. Is this normal? Should ths chip even activate without an SLI setup? Is this because one of my pcie3 slots is populated by my firewire card? Although my system runs great I'm very curious and intrigued by this chip. While I love the fact that it essentially doubles the pci lanes in this chipset For multi GPU setups by lane switching, I'm not sure I want the extra heat for a single GPU setup. I've searched the web and haven't found very much practical data on this. Any real world experience would be greatly appreciated.

[Chino]

Welcome to the Republic of Gamers forums, Johnnyrook82.

The PLX chip activates itself whenever a non native PCIe lane is occupied. It doesn't necessarily have to be a SLI configuration. It is normal that the PLX gets as hot as 50C because if you look at it closely, you'll see that it's a really tiny chip. Now imagine all the heat that is generated in that small area.

[HiVizMan]

You are enabling the PLEX chip. And Chino is correct the chip does get warm. Not sure I have had one at 50'C but then I hardly ever mess with it.

[feniks]

yup, my PLX runs at 50C at idle when the lane assigned to it is occupied, it's normal in this fanless design.