Motherboard PCIe Question

[pyschometal]

Hi Guy's,

Can anyone help me with a question I have.

This is a the page in my MB manual that describes the functions and bandwidths of the PCI's.

Am I right in thinking that it doesn't matter if I use slot 2 or 5 for a single GPU?

I want to have a move around for better airflow, but my sound card sits right on top of my GPU with it installed in the top slot.

Thanks.

 

[jamesriley94]

Slot 2 will run with x16 bandwidth, whilst slot 5 will only run at half that at x8.

As it's only PCIE2.0 anyway, there may be more of a difference than if it were PCIE3.0.

It's certainly not recommended to run in the bottom slot, however, depending on the hardware it may not make a difference. Try running a benchmark such as 3D Mark through all of its runs in the top slot, then move it to slot 5 and see if/by how much the scores differ.

When you say the soundcard sits on top of the graphics card, I assume you mean in slot 1? You could move that to slot 7 to get it out of the way and it will still run perfectly fine.

 

[pyschometal]

No, Sound card is currently in slot 1. GPU is currently in slot 2.

I want to move the GPU to slot 5 and the sound card to slot 3 but I don't want to lose any GPU performance.

 

[pyschometal]

When you say the soundcard sits on top of the graphics card, I assume you mean in slot 1? You could move that to slot 7 to get it out of the way and it will still run perfectly fine.

Can I do that? Will the sound card interface work in slot 7 even though it is a smaller connection (Sound Blaster Z)

 

[agent_x007]

Can I do that? Will the sound card interface work in slot 7 even though it is a smaller connection (Sound Blaster Z)

It's in description : "Compatible with PCI-e x1 and x4 devices".

 

[pyschometal]

Sorry, just 1 more...

Could I use slot 5 for the Sound Blaster Z, or is there other issues e.g. not backwards compatible?

 

[SuB]

you can use it in *any* of your pci-express slots fella (that's 1,2,3,5 or 7) . it's an x1 device

 

[pyschometal]

Nice, thanks all for the help