Is PCIe 1.0 slot bottlenecking PCIe 3.0 HD 7850?

[Robert P]

I currently have an HD 7850 card (PCIe 3.0) in my Gigabyte board with a PCIe 1.0 slot, waiting on a board with a PCIe 2.0 slot.

With Medal Of Honor Warfighter and Battlefield 3 I find I can run on "high" settings but "Ultra" causes it to stutter.

Do you think this 1.0 slot is bottlenecking this particular card? It's my understanding that in many cases the generation labeling is more marketing hype than reflection of actual better data flow.

Is there a reliable way to test/compare the actual data flow?

 

[Darren]

I would imagine yes. I have the same card running in a 2.0 Slot and I can run BF3 on Ultra with no problems. I'm running at 1600 x 900, not 1080p. I get about 60fps on the ground and flying around in big maps goes into the 40's. This is with every setting up to full.

 

[Okedokey]

I would imagine yes. I have the same card running in a 2.0 Slot and I can run BF3 on Ultra with no problems. I'm running at 1600 x 900, not 1080p. I get about 60fps on the ground and flying around in big maps goes into the 40's. This is with every setting up to full.

1600 x 900 is a lot smaller than 1080p, however unless post-processing is used, the final rendered image does not move across the bus, making resolution irrelevant to this discussion.

PCIe 1.1a at 16x will have a maximum throughput equivalent to PCIe2.0 at 8x or PCIe 3.0 at 4x. Even at those speeds youre not going to see any difference with that card. Its more likely to be something else in your system like the CPU.