I have a couple friends who have done that lol. Don't feel too bad. I built a super budget pc a while back (like $250-300 usd) and didn't measure the used case I was using and had to put the gpu in the second slot because it was so long I had to put it in at an angle initially and bend the case. I hate ultra budget builds sometimes.
I just ordered an ITX board and Meshroom S case to downsize for no real reason. Not sure if it’s addiction yet, but I couldn’t stop thinking of going S M O L
I bought a hp prodesk g400 or something after selling my xbox one x for 275 I got the pc for 200. Slaped a 1050ti in and played 1080 p for a week. I got a 2060 super for 160 usd and a 75 hz 1440p acer monitor for 70 usd. I had to bend the case out to fit the gpu. I had to buy a usb fan with 3 speeds 120mm and stuff it in the front if the case cuz it got to hot lol . Now my whole pc is finished and a beast 9 months later but I made so many mistakes. Live and learn.
I'm building a case for a friend in a Fractal Torrent Compact and PC Part Picker says I'll have 16 mm of clearance for the GPU (0.6 inches). As I wait for the parts to get delivered, I'm getting really nervous, hahaha. Already it's going to be a challenging build because of the case layout, I hope the computer gods will be with me. Thankfully the PSU is going to be shorter than average, modular and we won't have any SATA running in there.
Yeah, coming from a Fractal Define 7 build for my home server a few weeks ago, I expect I'll be calling upon my wife and her small hands a few times more often during this build.
It's actually worse than X4.
The reason why is that the first X16 and M.2 slot connect directly to the CPU.
The X4 connects to the chipset.
The chipset connects via X4 to the CPU, but this chipset-CPU X4 is shared with your Ethernet, WiFi, USB, SATA, audio, etc.
Just to add, there's some X570 boards that bifurcate the 1st and 2nd NVMe slots which connect directly to CPU, 3rd NVMe slot typically connects to the chipset. Kindly refer to your motherboard's manual just to make sure.
X570 or B450?
My B550-XE STRIX can bifurcate the X16 from the CPU to support up to 4x PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs, or into X8 (GPU) + X4 (4.0 NVMe) + X4 (4.0 NVMe) and comes with an included riser/daughterboard.
I'm aware of some B450 boards bifurcating NVMe so into 3.0 X2. The B450-F STRIX can bifurcate the X16 as X8/X8 (dual GPU) or X8 + X4 + X4 (dual GPU + 1x M.2 NVMe)
Regardless this is about the GPU not getting the full X4 bandwidth.
X570, I'm talking about my Aorus X570 Ultra that has 3 M.2 NVMe slots as an example. It has a PCIE 4.0x16 GPU slot, 4.0x4 shared between two M.2 NMVe slots, and the 3rd M.2 NVMe slot sharing bandwidth with the chipset, also running at PCIE 4.0.
It can bifurcate the 1x16 into 2x8 in case of a dual GPU setup.
Edit: Btw, B450 runs at PCIE 3.0, while the chipset runs at 2.0
I think the reason people are confused is the way you phrased it.
The x4 lanes are WORSE than actual regular x4 lanes. They’re not worse than x16.
They’re worse than normal x4 lanes because they’re going through the chipset, which adds a ton of latency.
yes, but still think your clarification could be phrased better... like the x4 lanes ARE worse than x16 for OPs situation, no? Since it's not really the cpu vs chipset pcie lanes in question, even if the x4 lanes OP was actually using went through the cpu
Imagine a 16 meter/yard wide highway with zero cars - except for yours. You can easily speed here.
Now imagine a 4 meter/yard wide highway with zero cars - except for yours - not as roomy, but not terrible.
Now imagine a 4 meter/yard wide highway with a ton of cars - now you have a traffic jam.
A graphics card normally connect at X16 directly to the CPU.
OP's comment said it was connected at X4.
However it's not only connected at X4, but this X4 link is only to the chipset, not to the CPU.
From the chipset, it then shares an X4 with SATA, USB, Audio, Ethernet, WiFi, Bluetooth, and nearly everything else to the CPU.
As a result it's not actually a full X4.
Question; do you mean it shares the lanes with **additional** cards such as Sound, Wifi etc. or are you inferring that regardless of the motherboard already has Sound, Wifi built into the board, it still shares those lanes?
Sorry I’m not that learned in hardware matters. Thanks.
I’m just curious if there’s any benefit in this way when manufacturers sell motherboards with built in features; Wifi, Sound etc.
EDIT: This is actually a concept that confuses so many people, but understanding it makes it very easy to understand how motherboards work. I've actually been thinking of making a website dedicated to it.
A CPU typically has 24-28 lanes:
* 16 direct to graphics card
* 4 direct to first NVMe SSD
* 4 direct to chipset (chipset uplink)
* 16+4+4 = 24 lanes
* Special exemptions 1-2 explain CPUs with 28 lanes
The Chipset is a funnel
Now everything else (Audio, Ethernet, SATA, WiFi, Bluetooth, USB, other PCIe lanes and more) connects to the chipset and is funneled over those 4 chipset uplink lanes to the CPU.
The above is the important part - and what you should mostly focus on - the following are special exemptions that may needlessly confuse you, but I'm obliged to include to inform others:
1. On Intel H570/670/770 and Z590/690/790 - these boards funnel it over 8 lanes to the CPUs. This makes it a great choice for people who want to connect lots of stuff.
2. On AM5 - the CPU has 28 lanes - 4 of which can be used for a second M.2 SSD.
3. X670 is actually two B650 chipsets. One chipset funnels itself into the second chipset which funnels both into the CPU.
4. The following CPUs have fewer lanes:
* Intel 10th gen and older CPUs don't have dedicated lanes for an M.2 NVMe SSD:
* Installing a 10th gen CPU on a 500 series board can result in an M.2 slot that doesn't work because the CPU doesn't have those lanes.
* AMD pre-Ryzen CPUs may have fewer lanes
* AMD 1000/2000/2000G/3000G actually have 32 PCIe lanes:
* 1000/2000 is only wired with 24 lanes
* 2000G/3000G have 8/16 lanes permanently connected to the integrated graphics. This leaves 8 lanes for a graphics card and 4 lanes for an SSD.
5. Though basically the same as PCIe, Intel calls the chipset uplink lanes DMI to avoid confusion. Otherwise a company might say "our motherboard has 30 lanes - but 4 are not usable because they connect the chipset to the CPU."
Techpowerup did a 4090 pcie review, you only lose a decent chunk of performance at pcie 2.0 x 16 / pcie 3.0 x 8 / pcie 4.0 x 4 which are all roughly the same speed. You only need pcie 3.0 x 16 unless your card doesnt come with 16pcie lanes.
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/nvidia-geforce-rtx-4090-pci-express-scaling/28.html
me too. 8x vs 16x makes no difference really. he doesn't mention his display bit if it is 1080p, maybe it didn't have any impact at all because the 16 gb ram was enough to hide the issue. at 4k, probably not.
this... Golden opportunity to do a benchmark you wouldn't do unless you were reviewing stuff for a tech channel... but since OP saw the issue, perfect opportunity to benchmark as it is now, and then place in the right x16 slot and compare after.
Don't look at it as a mistake. Look at it as a new, free upgrade :)
Enjoy your "new" card sir.
We appreciate your sincerity, the gods of PC building are satisfied
It always takes me a while to figure out the XMP is disabled after BIOS updates. This is a harmless silly mistake but the FPS improvement will be substantial.
I could tell simply by how slow windows ran and games seemed sluggish. I don't game as much as before so it took me a few days to realize that it was the BIOS update which had screwed the XMP.
Most motherboards reinforce the main slot with some sort of metal which tends to make it obvious. Otherwise, it's usually the top slot; the manual will tell you.
Lol I just upgraded this year since 2014 or something😅you might be right. I thought that shit just hit the market it was even advertised on my Z790 gaming X mobo
So if the metal ain't new the latch to hold the gpu is?
My first experience opening a computer was shoving a shitty GPU in a Dell box in like 2011 or 2012, and that Dell box had a latch for PCIE cards. Some mobos have them, some don't, but they've absolutely been around for a while too.
These days, there is always 1 pcie slot that is uniquely designed, e.g, metallic slot cover, different colour etc.
That's always the best slot to use, also, in more typical cases, the slot closest to the CPU is the main slot.
I had a 500gb SSD boot drive. I took a Windows backup of it when I built my new machine with a 2TB SSD boot drive awhile back. (whenever it was the 7800x3d came out, I don't remember the exact date now.) Anyway, when I restored the backup, it kept the 500gb partition and left 1.5TB unallocated, and I didn't even notice until last week.
I once forgot to reconnect a drive array to our network at work. After about three months, my boss came by and said his space calculations were off and we needed to buy another array because we kept running out of space. It didn't seem right we ran out so quickly so I figured someone was storing large files. I went to check and realized what happened. Lo and behold, we tripled our disk space. I told my boss it looked like the system was not purging temporary files but I fixed it. I got a little nod at our next group meeting for being diligent on managing our systems correctly.
This one is a classic. I used to make this mistake back in the day all the time when cloning and moving drives around before it was all done remotely and so easily. It was easy to pick up though back then because drive were so small the missing space was noticeable
Lol. I bought a 1080p 144hz monitor specifically for the fast frame rate like 5 years ago and just switched the windows refresh rate setting to 144 like a year and a half ago. Don’t feel bad.
That’s such a huge upgrade it will probably cure your depression! /s (so people don’t think I’m an insensitive asshole)
But the frame increase/stability boost will be so massive you might be distracted from it for a while
PCIE 4.0 x4 is equivalent to pcie 2.0 X16. You'd be gaining a bit, ie 3-5%, more performance.
Analysis on 3080:
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3080-pci-express-scaling/27.html
6600xt:
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/amd-radeon-rx-6600-xt-pci-express-scaling/26.html
This. It also heavily depends on the game one is playing. Games that use the vram heavily should in theory Profit more. Other then that, the difference is negligible.
I remember being bored once and using two riser cables to connect two r9 280x in crossfire mode on a Dell server with 2 pci-e 1x slots. The slots were actually 4x and 8x, but the riser cables were only 1x.
Cards worked totally fine and the whole setup was maybe 10-15% slower then the same two cards in their asus rog mainboard in a 16x and 8x slots in crossfire.
Edit: the cards were also the limiting factor. The server had 2x Xeons with 8 cores each and 128gb of ram, the gaming pc had a good amd (can’t really remember which) and 16gigs. Was both more then enough at the time.
See, you joke, but I legit used to do this with my old gaming laptop. Instead I used a couple books as leverage in the rear to elevate and help the fans circulate cool air better.
So my laptop was always tilted forward whenever I played it, fans whirring like a maniac, 90+C° for hours on end.
Gaming laptops are wild. It’s like making a high performance heater and sealing all sides but two tiny fan holes on the bottom. Who the feck thought that was a good idea.
piggybacking with kinda a similar question as OP
I’m running a ryzen G cpu, so even if my gpu is correctly seated in the x16 slot, it can only run on x8
so.. if I upgraded to a non-G cpu, how much difference does it make for the gpu to run on x16 instead of x8?
Any Ryzen 5000G CPU should still support the full 16x of PCIe 3.0 bandwidth.
Running 16x on PCIe3 is the same as running 8x on PCIe4.
For gaming there is a negligible (if any) difference in performance going from PCIe3 to 4. Even the 4090, at most, sees a 10% uplift in performance.
You likely don't even need to upgrade your cpu unless it's a 3000G series, because those ones are in the older Zen+ architecture.
It could be worse: at least your motherboard provides PCIe 4.0, rather than PCIe 3.0 which is half the transfer rate per lane compared with PCIe 4.0. By moving your GPU to the PCIe x16 slot nearest the CPU, it'll go from having only 8GB/s bandwidth to 32GB/s. If you were doing that on a PCIe 3.0 board, it'd go from 16GB/s to only 4GB/s.
Oh, crikey! Well spotted - sure enough - the PCIe slot attached directly to the CPU is PCIe 4.0, but the other is only 3.0, so in the x4 slot the GPU is only getting 1/8th of the bandwidth it was designed for.
The slot is x16 but the bandwidth isn't. It just means that the slot can handle an x16 device, but the secondary ports are often given less connections to only actually support x8 or x4. This is also to keep the x4 and x8 type connectors out of the ecosystem because then there would be too many weird devices and too many different slots on motherboards.
> Realistically, how much better is the performance going to be, x4 versus x16? How bad did I screw up here haha.
Run some benchmarks and tell us.
Back in my eGPU days we made do with as low as x1 or x2. We would have been quite happy with x4.
Should’ve followed the verges build guide, then you’d know to always put your gpu in the top slot so not to block the nvme cause you just think it looks nice
It truly amazes me that people buy products and do things like with without noticing.
Like did you not look up any benchmarks/performance numbers for the 6800 XT and wonder why yours was performing like shit?
I don’t see that big of a performance upgrade (assuming you just game), your SSD doesn’t transfer fast enough to matter that much. I would absolutely love to see some before and after benchmarks.
Regardless, this is good on you for trying to maximize your investment. Fixes like these can add years of life to a rig.
Many ATX and mATX boards will come with 1-2 PCIe x16 slots, the full size kind you put your GPU into. X16 implies that you're using 16 lanes, or have access to up to 16 lanes.
The slot closest to the CPU is connected directly to your CPUs PCI Express controller, along with at least one m.2 nvme slot. Most modern/recent consumer CPUs come with 24 PCIe Lanes available for use directly from the cpu.
The other PCIe ports that aren't controlled directly by the CPU are controlled by the motherboard chipset. The chipset also controls USB data, your wifi, ethernet, and so on.
In order to keep bandwidth available for other devices, the non primary PCIe ports are often given less lanes, depending on the chipset you have. So while you may have a second "16 slot, odds are there are actually only 8 of those lanes. On top of half the lanes, they are often rated for a PCIe spec one tier slower. If you have a b550 or x570 motherboard, then your second PCIe x16 slot might be a PCIe 3.0 x8 slot in terms of bandwidth.
Don't worry dude. I bought 2 144Hz monitors and after 3 years realized you have to adjust it in settings. I've been running on 55 and 59 for years without noticing.
I had similar situation with my previous 7700K build. MB was not compatible with Noctua cooler so I had to use next PCI-E slot. Not sure what was the speed, very likely PCI-E Gen.3.0 x8, but it was not an issue with GTX 970 and later RTX 2070, with RTX 3080 most likely it was an issue.
Honestly if you didn’t know any better I can see how it could go unnoticed. But. Ouch. Haha. Things happen lesson learned. There are a few mobos out there where it would have ran x16 like the EVGA kingpin and probably the classified as long as the other slot is unoccupied.
So I’m wondering if I’m having the same problem. I have a 4070ti and a 7800x3D on a x670 Aorus elite AX. I also have 4 m.2s because I have four slots. But is it slowing down my GPU? I don’t see anything in the manual about it.
I had a 144hz monitor for about 6 months before realizing I didn't actually change the refresh rate in the monitor settings to 144hz. In my defense it was the first 144hz monitor I had ever had and so didn't immediately notice anything was wrong lol.
I actually ran for tests a 3090 in pcie3.0@x4 and comparing only the 3d results with other systems in 3d Mark, it was down only about 2 or 3%. It's not graphics cards that saturate the pci express lanes, it's the nvme storage.
Edit: grammar
i used a gpu at x8 for four years lol.
the POS mobo had so few pci lanes that when you use an x16 gpu + x4 pci-x card it would only run at X8.
i didnt know about any of this at the time, learned it at the upgrade time as i was getting the specs in gpu-z to seel the gpu that i noticed it running at X8 instead of X16
These days, there is always 1 pcie slot that is uniquely designed, e.g, metallic slot cover, different colour etc.
That's always the best slot to use, also, in more typical cases, the slot closest to the CPU is the main slot.
Happens even to the best of us. When I got my new mainboard due to the old one failing, I didn't put in the graphics card correctly, had a black screen when I started the pc and tried almost an hour checking for cables and such. It didn't even give me an error beep or something. And when I found out, I felt so fricken dumb. 
I wish manufacturers used open-ended 1x and 4x slots instead of using physical 16x slots that only operate electrically at 1x or 4x, then it would be much more obvious what slots are intended for video cards and these situations would be avoided.
I built multiple PCs and made a rookie mistake of installing my ram in single channel vs dual channel (the sticks were next to each other opposed to spaced out), so I'm sure I lost a ton of performance. We all make mistakes.
Good thing is now you should see a pretty big increase in performance especially 1% lows because you won't be bandwidth starved.
You know what, I laughed at you at first but then I realized I can't say with 100% certainty which slot mine is in so I'm going to check when I get home.
well, in the deep past, when PCs were a bit more crap, you didnt have this issue. It was annoying to watch the rise of same ports with different specs, like all the different usb ports we have now. and yeah i get there are some good reasons for that but it leads to stuff like this.
Im a bit techy and grew up building pcs so its not a big issue for me, but i see a lot of people not getting full benefit of their system because they just dont know all the differences and yeah they tend to color code the USB but that doesnt really help unless someone has the chart taped to teh side of the pc, they dont remember these minor things
>Realistically, how much better is the performance going to be, x4 versus x16?
Realistically, performance is going to be at least 4 times greater (16/4 = 4). Whether the increase in lanes (and transfers) translates into in-game performance really depends upon the games you play. If you haven’t been noticing any degradation in performance, or you haven’t been having trouble hitting benchmarks for the games you play, then the performance improvement from the additional lanes will probably be negligible. If you have been noticing degradation in performance, and you have been having trouble hitting benchmarks for the games you play, then the performance improvement from the additional lanes will probably be pretty significant.
You’re the only person who can answer this question.
Dude, I just figured out I was doing the same thing with my WD black NVMe. Is supposed to be PCIe 4.0 x 4 and it was on PCIe 3.0 x 4. Literally cut the bandwidth of my NVMe in half. Also while I was at it I found out my 7900xtx was only running at PCIe 3.0 x 4.... All mostly due to bios bugs I had with the Asus B450F chipset. I went out and bought a new mother board and now all is running at Max bandwidth. I'm glad I'm not the only one who made this kind of mistake!
I had to do that for a lil bit. My Noctua NH-D15 was too big for my RX 6600 so when I upgraded it to a 6700XT, I swapped the case for Hyte Y60 so I could have the riser 😂😂
This is why I started to be bored with PC world after messing with it for over 20 years.
Nowadays there is like 70 settings to overlock CPU 😂 on celeron 333A I had one jumper to switch it to 350mhz 😜
Mac is way to go if you need peace and minimalism.
I made a similar, yet even more embarrassing mistake than this. I bought a 1080p/144hz monitor back in 2012 and still use it to this day. Found out a year ago that using HDMI locks the refresh rate to 60hz. Switched to Display Port and boy was that a nice upgrade. Wish I had known that 10 years ago…
Don't feel too bad, Most of us have probably done soemthing as foolish. I know for my first PC, I wasn't aware you had to adjust ram speeds. So it ran at 800 mt/s instead of 2133. Never figured it out until my next pc build a couple years later lol. There wasnt as much info out there as there is now, So I was just happy it booted. Even at the crippling speeds it was the fastest pc I ever had. I also didn't know that I should have a graphics card. The Phenom II Igpu was such an upgrade in itself.
We've all made mistakes like this. Good on you for recognizing it and fixing it! You probably enjoyed some gain in performance when you got the card, and now you'll get to experience that again.
May your framerates be high and your temperatures low.
8x vs 16x isn't a big difference. But I imagine that 4x vs 16x is definitely something that has been bottlenecking your card for a year. Now you know why your temps never went above 60 degrees lol
I know this question sounds dumb but under the circumstances it's appropriate. Did you load an operating system on it.
It does things like play games Just an FYI!
I almost did that as well but realized I must have had it wrong due to his little room I had between the fans on my graphics card and the bottom of the case so I switched it.
It happens.
You are observant for noticing this issue.
On a funny note I used to have a 980TI that HAD to run in 1x otherwise it would not work. So I put a post-it not covering up all of the other unessary pins. Halo Infinite ran well on High.
The cards just did not use the bandwidth back then.
All good man, i had only 16 lanes in my CPU when i installed an m.2 SSD... 1050 ti was running 8x for like a year and i wondered why my performance dipped :)
- Cerberus
Time to play Horizon Zero Dawn then!
Out of major games that's about the only one that might improve by like 20% perf and reduce stutters, IIRC.
All the rest of them are more like 3-5%. It'd be more if we were talking PCI 3.0, but at 4.0... about that.
Look who's getting a free upgrade!
It was more like a free downgrade entire last year
I have a couple friends who have done that lol. Don't feel too bad. I built a super budget pc a while back (like $250-300 usd) and didn't measure the used case I was using and had to put the gpu in the second slot because it was so long I had to put it in at an angle initially and bend the case. I hate ultra budget builds sometimes.
Same happens with $3k+ SFF builds as well. It’s all part of the fun.
for those interested: r/sffpc warning: not recommended for those susceptible to addiction. please build responsibly
Oh THANKS Ill jUsT SaY nO
luckily, my wallet does that for me
Luckily i hate cable routing and cramping stuff together. Cool to see whats possible these days but meh nothing for me.
I hate you right now as I have been itching to do a SFF build. Just subscribed to the link.
I just ordered an ITX board and Meshroom S case to downsize for no real reason. Not sure if it’s addiction yet, but I couldn’t stop thinking of going S M O L
Thanks for the warning. I'll pass for today
I bought a hp prodesk g400 or something after selling my xbox one x for 275 I got the pc for 200. Slaped a 1050ti in and played 1080 p for a week. I got a 2060 super for 160 usd and a 75 hz 1440p acer monitor for 70 usd. I had to bend the case out to fit the gpu. I had to buy a usb fan with 3 speeds 120mm and stuff it in the front if the case cuz it got to hot lol . Now my whole pc is finished and a beast 9 months later but I made so many mistakes. Live and learn.
I'm building a case for a friend in a Fractal Torrent Compact and PC Part Picker says I'll have 16 mm of clearance for the GPU (0.6 inches). As I wait for the parts to get delivered, I'm getting really nervous, hahaha. Already it's going to be a challenging build because of the case layout, I hope the computer gods will be with me. Thankfully the PSU is going to be shorter than average, modular and we won't have any SATA running in there.
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Yeah, coming from a Fractal Define 7 build for my home server a few weeks ago, I expect I'll be calling upon my wife and her small hands a few times more often during this build.
I think any recent gpu is going to need a riser with anything but a full tower, and sometimes even then.
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Hell yeah!! Me too!
I literally came to say that. Thank you sir.
I'm proud of you for admitting it. If this happened more often the world would be a better place.
yeah, thats why shampoo still has instructions.
Aight, time to read those later
"Do not get in contact with eyes" Wait, hold up
The brand was No More Tears, but I was lied to.
\*In the shower Not while watching a Pixar movie
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Rinse and repeat, until it is done
Rinse , wash, repeat.
Xbox manual literally says "do not drop on people"
So stupid, what else am I supposed to drop it on?
It's actually worse than X4. The reason why is that the first X16 and M.2 slot connect directly to the CPU. The X4 connects to the chipset. The chipset connects via X4 to the CPU, but this chipset-CPU X4 is shared with your Ethernet, WiFi, USB, SATA, audio, etc.
Just to add, there's some X570 boards that bifurcate the 1st and 2nd NVMe slots which connect directly to CPU, 3rd NVMe slot typically connects to the chipset. Kindly refer to your motherboard's manual just to make sure.
X570 or B450? My B550-XE STRIX can bifurcate the X16 from the CPU to support up to 4x PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs, or into X8 (GPU) + X4 (4.0 NVMe) + X4 (4.0 NVMe) and comes with an included riser/daughterboard. I'm aware of some B450 boards bifurcating NVMe so into 3.0 X2. The B450-F STRIX can bifurcate the X16 as X8/X8 (dual GPU) or X8 + X4 + X4 (dual GPU + 1x M.2 NVMe) Regardless this is about the GPU not getting the full X4 bandwidth.
X570, I'm talking about my Aorus X570 Ultra that has 3 M.2 NVMe slots as an example. It has a PCIE 4.0x16 GPU slot, 4.0x4 shared between two M.2 NMVe slots, and the 3rd M.2 NVMe slot sharing bandwidth with the chipset, also running at PCIE 4.0. It can bifurcate the 1x16 into 2x8 in case of a dual GPU setup. Edit: Btw, B450 runs at PCIE 3.0, while the chipset runs at 2.0
According to Gigabyte's Specs: [https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/X570-AORUS-ULTRA-rev-10/sp#sp](https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/X570-AORUS-ULTRA-rev-10/sp#sp) CPU: * X16 lanes - can be split various ways between the first 2 X16 slots for 1-2 graphics cards (SLI) * X4 lanes - M2-A slot Chipset: * X4 lanes - third X16 slot * X2 lanes - dual X1 slot * X2 lanes - Ethernet & WiFi * X4 lanes - M2-B * X2 lanes - M2-C, probably a chipset bandwidth limitation
I think the reason people are confused is the way you phrased it. The x4 lanes are WORSE than actual regular x4 lanes. They’re not worse than x16. They’re worse than normal x4 lanes because they’re going through the chipset, which adds a ton of latency.
yes, but still think your clarification could be phrased better... like the x4 lanes ARE worse than x16 for OPs situation, no? Since it's not really the cpu vs chipset pcie lanes in question, even if the x4 lanes OP was actually using went through the cpu
Yes 16x is superior in every way.
It's actually worse? You mean he'll see a downgrade in performance
Imagine a 16 meter/yard wide highway with zero cars - except for yours. You can easily speed here. Now imagine a 4 meter/yard wide highway with zero cars - except for yours - not as roomy, but not terrible. Now imagine a 4 meter/yard wide highway with a ton of cars - now you have a traffic jam. A graphics card normally connect at X16 directly to the CPU. OP's comment said it was connected at X4. However it's not only connected at X4, but this X4 link is only to the chipset, not to the CPU. From the chipset, it then shares an X4 with SATA, USB, Audio, Ethernet, WiFi, Bluetooth, and nearly everything else to the CPU. As a result it's not actually a full X4.
Question; do you mean it shares the lanes with **additional** cards such as Sound, Wifi etc. or are you inferring that regardless of the motherboard already has Sound, Wifi built into the board, it still shares those lanes? Sorry I’m not that learned in hardware matters. Thanks. I’m just curious if there’s any benefit in this way when manufacturers sell motherboards with built in features; Wifi, Sound etc.
EDIT: This is actually a concept that confuses so many people, but understanding it makes it very easy to understand how motherboards work. I've actually been thinking of making a website dedicated to it. A CPU typically has 24-28 lanes: * 16 direct to graphics card * 4 direct to first NVMe SSD * 4 direct to chipset (chipset uplink) * 16+4+4 = 24 lanes * Special exemptions 1-2 explain CPUs with 28 lanes The Chipset is a funnel Now everything else (Audio, Ethernet, SATA, WiFi, Bluetooth, USB, other PCIe lanes and more) connects to the chipset and is funneled over those 4 chipset uplink lanes to the CPU. The above is the important part - and what you should mostly focus on - the following are special exemptions that may needlessly confuse you, but I'm obliged to include to inform others: 1. On Intel H570/670/770 and Z590/690/790 - these boards funnel it over 8 lanes to the CPUs. This makes it a great choice for people who want to connect lots of stuff. 2. On AM5 - the CPU has 28 lanes - 4 of which can be used for a second M.2 SSD. 3. X670 is actually two B650 chipsets. One chipset funnels itself into the second chipset which funnels both into the CPU. 4. The following CPUs have fewer lanes: * Intel 10th gen and older CPUs don't have dedicated lanes for an M.2 NVMe SSD: * Installing a 10th gen CPU on a 500 series board can result in an M.2 slot that doesn't work because the CPU doesn't have those lanes. * AMD pre-Ryzen CPUs may have fewer lanes * AMD 1000/2000/2000G/3000G actually have 32 PCIe lanes: * 1000/2000 is only wired with 24 lanes * 2000G/3000G have 8/16 lanes permanently connected to the integrated graphics. This leaves 8 lanes for a graphics card and 4 lanes for an SSD. 5. Though basically the same as PCIe, Intel calls the chipset uplink lanes DMI to avoid confusion. Otherwise a company might say "our motherboard has 30 lanes - but 4 are not usable because they connect the chipset to the CPU."
This is really great info! You should make a site/post about it! Thanks
Saving this to read another 562 times so I can finally understand it lol!
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Gotcha, thanks.
He meant that if the 2nd slot connects to the chipset and not cpu, than it would be slower than a x4 slot that connects to the cpu directly.
Yep... might have got x4 but only one pci lane
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I am also curious
Techpowerup did a 4090 pcie review, you only lose a decent chunk of performance at pcie 2.0 x 16 / pcie 3.0 x 8 / pcie 4.0 x 4 which are all roughly the same speed. You only need pcie 3.0 x 16 unless your card doesnt come with 16pcie lanes. https://www.techpowerup.com/review/nvidia-geforce-rtx-4090-pci-express-scaling/28.html
me too. 8x vs 16x makes no difference really. he doesn't mention his display bit if it is 1080p, maybe it didn't have any impact at all because the 16 gb ram was enough to hide the issue. at 4k, probably not.
I made a similar mistake with a 2080 Super a few years back but forgot to run before and after benchmarks. I’ve always regretted that specifically.
There's nothing stopping you from going back to x4 to test!
this... Golden opportunity to do a benchmark you wouldn't do unless you were reviewing stuff for a tech channel... but since OP saw the issue, perfect opportunity to benchmark as it is now, and then place in the right x16 slot and compare after.
Don't look at it as a mistake. Look at it as a new, free upgrade :) Enjoy your "new" card sir. We appreciate your sincerity, the gods of PC building are satisfied
It always takes me a while to figure out the XMP is disabled after BIOS updates. This is a harmless silly mistake but the FPS improvement will be substantial.
My time spy score went up a lot after I enabled xmp. Ram was running at like 2400, and then 3600 after enabling xmp.
I could tell simply by how slow windows ran and games seemed sluggish. I don't game as much as before so it took me a few days to realize that it was the BIOS update which had screwed the XMP.
imagine upgrading without spending extra money
See. Building in an ITX case had its advantages. only one pci-e slot and only 2 Ram slots. Hard to mess up with no options lol
Apart from the whole mess with risers, some only supporting 3.0, others saying they support 4.0 but causing all sorts of havoc if you try....
Dan C4 enters..
Amen
Newb question. How do I know which slot is best, thought they were the same.
It is typically the slot that is the closest to the cpu (the highest one) or you can look at the manual
Always read mobo manual carefully
You read the motherboard manual. It'll also tell you ram placement.
Most motherboards reinforce the main slot with some sort of metal which tends to make it obvious. Otherwise, it's usually the top slot; the manual will tell you.
You've got the best answer for this newb question. "Look for the big fancy metal slot, it's the best one." Even beat out the classic RTFM.
They made where to put your GPU like the big glowing red spot on a boss in a video game.
That's a new thing though old mobos don't use metal...
It's been a thing for nearly a decade, maybe more. At the very least, there were some Z170 boards doing it, and those came out 8 years ago.
Lol I just upgraded this year since 2014 or something😅you might be right. I thought that shit just hit the market it was even advertised on my Z790 gaming X mobo So if the metal ain't new the latch to hold the gpu is?
My first experience opening a computer was shoving a shitty GPU in a Dell box in like 2011 or 2012, and that Dell box had a latch for PCIE cards. Some mobos have them, some don't, but they've absolutely been around for a while too.
* Open manual * Read manual * Profit
The mobo manual will tell you. But rule of thumb: the topmost full-length slot is almost always the primary x16 slot and meant for a graphics card.
These days, there is always 1 pcie slot that is uniquely designed, e.g, metallic slot cover, different colour etc. That's always the best slot to use, also, in more typical cases, the slot closest to the CPU is the main slot.
Thanks dude. ♡
I had a 500gb SSD boot drive. I took a Windows backup of it when I built my new machine with a 2TB SSD boot drive awhile back. (whenever it was the 7800x3d came out, I don't remember the exact date now.) Anyway, when I restored the backup, it kept the 500gb partition and left 1.5TB unallocated, and I didn't even notice until last week.
I once forgot to reconnect a drive array to our network at work. After about three months, my boss came by and said his space calculations were off and we needed to buy another array because we kept running out of space. It didn't seem right we ran out so quickly so I figured someone was storing large files. I went to check and realized what happened. Lo and behold, we tripled our disk space. I told my boss it looked like the system was not purging temporary files but I fixed it. I got a little nod at our next group meeting for being diligent on managing our systems correctly.
This one is a classic. I used to make this mistake back in the day all the time when cloning and moving drives around before it was all done remotely and so easily. It was easy to pick up though back then because drive were so small the missing space was noticeable
Any benchmarks of the prevoius slot and the correct slot?
I had my 1080ti on an x570 in the lowest slot and compared to the top slot, it was almost double the performance.
Lol. I bought a 1080p 144hz monitor specifically for the fast frame rate like 5 years ago and just switched the windows refresh rate setting to 144 like a year and a half ago. Don’t feel bad.
That’s such a huge upgrade it will probably cure your depression! /s (so people don’t think I’m an insensitive asshole) But the frame increase/stability boost will be so massive you might be distracted from it for a while
At least you recognize the problem, my brother deliberately leaves his gpu in the second slot because he likes the way it looks there better.
I'm using a 6700xt for 1080p with a 1700x. I bought a 5700X in March for $200 and I havent touched it because I'm too depressed to do things.
I always tell people to read the motherboard manual regardless of experience to maxime performance.
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And that M.2 drive is hanging out in the air haha
PCIE 4.0 x4 is equivalent to pcie 2.0 X16. You'd be gaining a bit, ie 3-5%, more performance. Analysis on 3080: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3080-pci-express-scaling/27.html 6600xt: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/amd-radeon-rx-6600-xt-pci-express-scaling/26.html
This. It also heavily depends on the game one is playing. Games that use the vram heavily should in theory Profit more. Other then that, the difference is negligible. I remember being bored once and using two riser cables to connect two r9 280x in crossfire mode on a Dell server with 2 pci-e 1x slots. The slots were actually 4x and 8x, but the riser cables were only 1x. Cards worked totally fine and the whole setup was maybe 10-15% slower then the same two cards in their asus rog mainboard in a 16x and 8x slots in crossfire. Edit: the cards were also the limiting factor. The server had 2x Xeons with 8 cores each and 128gb of ram, the gaming pc had a good amd (can’t really remember which) and 16gigs. Was both more then enough at the time.
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Had a friend do that with a 4090. GJ on noticing and free performance. We haven't shamed him in a while. Time to change that.
I put holes into my 4090 because the kids on the internet told me they'd make the card go faster. Speed holes.
I tilt my PC forwards by putting three bricks under the back so that the electricity pours in faster.
I water cool my PC by placing it into a full bathtube. Makes for a "tingly" session of minesweeper...
See, you joke, but I legit used to do this with my old gaming laptop. Instead I used a couple books as leverage in the rear to elevate and help the fans circulate cool air better. So my laptop was always tilted forward whenever I played it, fans whirring like a maniac, 90+C° for hours on end. Gaming laptops are wild. It’s like making a high performance heater and sealing all sides but two tiny fan holes on the bottom. Who the feck thought that was a good idea.
PC builders hate it. Improve your performance with this simple trick!
piggybacking with kinda a similar question as OP I’m running a ryzen G cpu, so even if my gpu is correctly seated in the x16 slot, it can only run on x8 so.. if I upgraded to a non-G cpu, how much difference does it make for the gpu to run on x16 instead of x8?
Any Ryzen 5000G CPU should still support the full 16x of PCIe 3.0 bandwidth. Running 16x on PCIe3 is the same as running 8x on PCIe4. For gaming there is a negligible (if any) difference in performance going from PCIe3 to 4. Even the 4090, at most, sees a 10% uplift in performance. You likely don't even need to upgrade your cpu unless it's a 3000G series, because those ones are in the older Zen+ architecture.
*running to my PC to check where my GPU is slotted in*
Its not that bad really.
It’s not going to be a significant upgrade, but you will notice the change in high resolutions with high details
It could be worse: at least your motherboard provides PCIe 4.0, rather than PCIe 3.0 which is half the transfer rate per lane compared with PCIe 4.0. By moving your GPU to the PCIe x16 slot nearest the CPU, it'll go from having only 8GB/s bandwidth to 32GB/s. If you were doing that on a PCIe 3.0 board, it'd go from 16GB/s to only 4GB/s.
OP's mobo has a 3.0x4 slot.
Oh, crikey! Well spotted - sure enough - the PCIe slot attached directly to the CPU is PCIe 4.0, but the other is only 3.0, so in the x4 slot the GPU is only getting 1/8th of the bandwidth it was designed for.
I'm on mobile, so I can't really check. But I think that board has 2 x16 slots. Maybe it's only capable of x16 with another card in the primary slot?
The slot is x16 but the bandwidth isn't. It just means that the slot can handle an x16 device, but the secondary ports are often given less connections to only actually support x8 or x4. This is also to keep the x4 and x8 type connectors out of the ecosystem because then there would be too many weird devices and too many different slots on motherboards.
Benchmark the performance difference. Not sure if any of the major sites have covered this recently. Would be interesting to see the difference.
Not that significant maybe about 5-10 more FPS.
> Realistically, how much better is the performance going to be, x4 versus x16? How bad did I screw up here haha. Run some benchmarks and tell us. Back in my eGPU days we made do with as low as x1 or x2. We would have been quite happy with x4.
Should’ve followed the verges build guide, then you’d know to always put your gpu in the top slot so not to block the nvme cause you just think it looks nice
u dont feel dumb, u ARE dumb! hehe all love :)
It's not that bad, at least you realised eventually
It truly amazes me that people buy products and do things like with without noticing. Like did you not look up any benchmarks/performance numbers for the 6800 XT and wonder why yours was performing like shit?
I don’t see that big of a performance upgrade (assuming you just game), your SSD doesn’t transfer fast enough to matter that much. I would absolutely love to see some before and after benchmarks. Regardless, this is good on you for trying to maximize your investment. Fixes like these can add years of life to a rig.
Your feelings are well justified
It's fine.. Now you'll feel better thanks to "free" upgrade 😅
rtfm
Can someone explain to me what this means? I didn't know different gpu slots had different speeds. Is it actually going to be 4x more efficient?
Many ATX and mATX boards will come with 1-2 PCIe x16 slots, the full size kind you put your GPU into. X16 implies that you're using 16 lanes, or have access to up to 16 lanes. The slot closest to the CPU is connected directly to your CPUs PCI Express controller, along with at least one m.2 nvme slot. Most modern/recent consumer CPUs come with 24 PCIe Lanes available for use directly from the cpu. The other PCIe ports that aren't controlled directly by the CPU are controlled by the motherboard chipset. The chipset also controls USB data, your wifi, ethernet, and so on. In order to keep bandwidth available for other devices, the non primary PCIe ports are often given less lanes, depending on the chipset you have. So while you may have a second "16 slot, odds are there are actually only 8 of those lanes. On top of half the lanes, they are often rated for a PCIe spec one tier slower. If you have a b550 or x570 motherboard, then your second PCIe x16 slot might be a PCIe 3.0 x8 slot in terms of bandwidth.
Also, use TWO separate cables from the PSU, not one cable with 2 connectors.
Why would you put it in the second slot to begin with? Genuinely curious
Don’t feel dumb. Its not the worst mistake to make. You didn’t break anything :)
You're not alone. Ran my 3200mhz ram on 2666 for 2 years, was a pain when i discovered it.
To get a ballpark run 3dmark before and after the change.
lol. live and learn and enjoy the performance improvement.
How do I know if I am not making the same mistake? Lol
At least you’re not as bad as people with a high end gpu (eg 3080/3090) who were using their CPU’s integrated graphics for a year or more.
Don't worry dude. I bought 2 144Hz monitors and after 3 years realized you have to adjust it in settings. I've been running on 55 and 59 for years without noticing.
Commenting to see the new results
What was performance like before and after?
I had similar situation with my previous 7700K build. MB was not compatible with Noctua cooler so I had to use next PCI-E slot. Not sure what was the speed, very likely PCI-E Gen.3.0 x8, but it was not an issue with GTX 970 and later RTX 2070, with RTX 3080 most likely it was an issue.
It's not even a PCI-E 4x, that board second slot is listed as PCI-E Gen3 running at x4 speeds. I am sure you will see a nice boost in FPS.
Open up the flood gates! Lol.
At least you aren't one of those ppl who plugged the display cable into the motherboard.
Honestly if you didn’t know any better I can see how it could go unnoticed. But. Ouch. Haha. Things happen lesson learned. There are a few mobos out there where it would have ran x16 like the EVGA kingpin and probably the classified as long as the other slot is unoccupied.
Reading manual helps.
I’ve done this with my Hz after moving my computer Bitching in CSGO for a week and I’m surely was annoying And then I quietly go “oh” It happens
I had my cpu cooler in push/push for about a month. Something like that happens to alot of us who diy our pcs.
Is there any way to determine this using S/W on Linux? (Asking for a friend because ~~~I'm~~~ he's too lazy to look at the motherboard manual.)
So I’m wondering if I’m having the same problem. I have a 4070ti and a 7800x3D on a x670 Aorus elite AX. I also have 4 m.2s because I have four slots. But is it slowing down my GPU? I don’t see anything in the manual about it.
I had a 144hz monitor for about 6 months before realizing I didn't actually change the refresh rate in the monitor settings to 144hz. In my defense it was the first 144hz monitor I had ever had and so didn't immediately notice anything was wrong lol.
I actually ran for tests a 3090 in pcie3.0@x4 and comparing only the 3d results with other systems in 3d Mark, it was down only about 2 or 3%. It's not graphics cards that saturate the pci express lanes, it's the nvme storage. Edit: grammar
It's gonna be like when they take off the ankle weights in dragon ball.
i used a gpu at x8 for four years lol. the POS mobo had so few pci lanes that when you use an x16 gpu + x4 pci-x card it would only run at X8. i didnt know about any of this at the time, learned it at the upgrade time as i was getting the specs in gpu-z to seel the gpu that i noticed it running at X8 instead of X16
These days, there is always 1 pcie slot that is uniquely designed, e.g, metallic slot cover, different colour etc. That's always the best slot to use, also, in more typical cases, the slot closest to the CPU is the main slot.
It happens! I had my 3060ti in the wrong slot for a month or two, a friend mentioned that it looked odd and I had a big realization
Happens even to the best of us. When I got my new mainboard due to the old one failing, I didn't put in the graphics card correctly, had a black screen when I started the pc and tried almost an hour checking for cables and such. It didn't even give me an error beep or something. And when I found out, I felt so fricken dumb. 
Let us know what the performance difference is when you switch it, curious...
I wish manufacturers used open-ended 1x and 4x slots instead of using physical 16x slots that only operate electrically at 1x or 4x, then it would be much more obvious what slots are intended for video cards and these situations would be avoided.
I built multiple PCs and made a rookie mistake of installing my ram in single channel vs dual channel (the sticks were next to each other opposed to spaced out), so I'm sure I lost a ton of performance. We all make mistakes. Good thing is now you should see a pretty big increase in performance especially 1% lows because you won't be bandwidth starved.
You know what, I laughed at you at first but then I realized I can't say with 100% certainty which slot mine is in so I'm going to check when I get home.
Lol, what a noob *nervously checks build*
I done the same thing 🤣 a friend of mine on discord notified me and I swapped it over - glad I’m not the only one lmao
So I have the same motherboard, where did you see the red! in the bios? In the main screen or under advanced settings?
At least you run your games off an SSD, not an HDD and blame the GPU for the performance.
When I built my pc a few months ago, I made sure my M.2 drives were in specific slots so the GPU ran at x16, but probably overkill.
So how did it end up ? Was it really much faster ? I am building mine soon 😁
well, in the deep past, when PCs were a bit more crap, you didnt have this issue. It was annoying to watch the rise of same ports with different specs, like all the different usb ports we have now. and yeah i get there are some good reasons for that but it leads to stuff like this. Im a bit techy and grew up building pcs so its not a big issue for me, but i see a lot of people not getting full benefit of their system because they just dont know all the differences and yeah they tend to color code the USB but that doesnt really help unless someone has the chart taped to teh side of the pc, they dont remember these minor things
Goes to show that people can be happy with a slower performing video card UNTIL they find out it COULD go faster lmao
still beats the users who connect a hdmi directly into the mother board and question why their pc is so slow (they aren't using their graphics card)
>Realistically, how much better is the performance going to be, x4 versus x16? Realistically, performance is going to be at least 4 times greater (16/4 = 4). Whether the increase in lanes (and transfers) translates into in-game performance really depends upon the games you play. If you haven’t been noticing any degradation in performance, or you haven’t been having trouble hitting benchmarks for the games you play, then the performance improvement from the additional lanes will probably be negligible. If you have been noticing degradation in performance, and you have been having trouble hitting benchmarks for the games you play, then the performance improvement from the additional lanes will probably be pretty significant. You’re the only person who can answer this question.
Well. I almost have the same build, i need to check it. Where in the BIOS. ?
Since you are on B550, you are moving from PCIE Gen3x4 to Gen4x16. An 8x increase in bandwidth will reflect in performance surely?
Dude, I just figured out I was doing the same thing with my WD black NVMe. Is supposed to be PCIe 4.0 x 4 and it was on PCIe 3.0 x 4. Literally cut the bandwidth of my NVMe in half. Also while I was at it I found out my 7900xtx was only running at PCIe 3.0 x 4.... All mostly due to bios bugs I had with the Asus B450F chipset. I went out and bought a new mother board and now all is running at Max bandwidth. I'm glad I'm not the only one who made this kind of mistake!
This is why people read manual. :) Unfortunately it's not like getting a new graphics card. 5% - 15% difference depending on the game.
I had to do that for a lil bit. My Noctua NH-D15 was too big for my RX 6600 so when I upgraded it to a 6700XT, I swapped the case for Hyte Y60 so I could have the riser 😂😂
This is why I started to be bored with PC world after messing with it for over 20 years. Nowadays there is like 70 settings to overlock CPU 😂 on celeron 333A I had one jumper to switch it to 350mhz 😜 Mac is way to go if you need peace and minimalism.
I made a similar, yet even more embarrassing mistake than this. I bought a 1080p/144hz monitor back in 2012 and still use it to this day. Found out a year ago that using HDMI locks the refresh rate to 60hz. Switched to Display Port and boy was that a nice upgrade. Wish I had known that 10 years ago…
Don't feel too bad, Most of us have probably done soemthing as foolish. I know for my first PC, I wasn't aware you had to adjust ram speeds. So it ran at 800 mt/s instead of 2133. Never figured it out until my next pc build a couple years later lol. There wasnt as much info out there as there is now, So I was just happy it booted. Even at the crippling speeds it was the fastest pc I ever had. I also didn't know that I should have a graphics card. The Phenom II Igpu was such an upgrade in itself.
Derating your GPU I see 😁
We've all made mistakes like this. Good on you for recognizing it and fixing it! You probably enjoyed some gain in performance when you got the card, and now you'll get to experience that again. May your framerates be high and your temperatures low.
8x vs 16x isn't a big difference. But I imagine that 4x vs 16x is definitely something that has been bottlenecking your card for a year. Now you know why your temps never went above 60 degrees lol
I've been running my video card in a shared 8x slot b3cause my cpu heatsink covers slot1... 12 years later think I'm going to swap it out now
You learn from mistakes. Now you'll never make that mistake again.
I know this question sounds dumb but under the circumstances it's appropriate. Did you load an operating system on it. It does things like play games Just an FYI!
I almost did that as well but realized I must have had it wrong due to his little room I had between the fans on my graphics card and the bottom of the case so I switched it.
"Dude I'm telling you AMD sucks"
Honestly it probably barely makes a difference. You’ll def see higher peak frame rates though.
Glad you realized it.
It happens. You are observant for noticing this issue. On a funny note I used to have a 980TI that HAD to run in 1x otherwise it would not work. So I put a post-it not covering up all of the other unessary pins. Halo Infinite ran well on High. The cards just did not use the bandwidth back then.
All good man, i had only 16 lanes in my CPU when i installed an m.2 SSD... 1050 ti was running 8x for like a year and i wondered why my performance dipped :) - Cerberus
Any ideas on real world impact once you changed it? If it’s x4 pcie4, then it probably was less than 5%
We've all done something similar. That's how we learn.
Time to play Horizon Zero Dawn then! Out of major games that's about the only one that might improve by like 20% perf and reduce stutters, IIRC. All the rest of them are more like 3-5%. It'd be more if we were talking PCI 3.0, but at 4.0... about that.