PCI question

spinnnerrr

Member
Hi guys. So I'm in the market for a sound card since I just got myself a fancy Logitech headset. I want my ears to BLEED lol

But anyway... so I currently have an ASRock z97 OC Formula mobo with a 980 GTX in the first PCI slot. My question is, will the performance of the GPU be affected when I snap in a sound card? ... I understand that there are a limited number of bus lanes that go from the CPU to the PCI slots, but I don't understand the translation of it in this chart:

mobo.png
 

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
Just find a soundcard that uses the pci express x1 slot. You'll be fine, no performance issues.
 

spinnnerrr

Member
But I'm confused as to which slot is the PCIe x1 slot.. cause all of the slots have the appearance of a full x16 slot.

20171214_123233.jpg
 

beers

Moderator
Staff member
Use the 2.0 slot or one of the 1x slots. A lot of sound cards just have a 1x connector. If you use the 3.0 slot your GPU will drop to 8x.

However, the performance delta between PCIE3.0 on 16x and 8x lanes is pretty small.

Per the spec sheet:
- 3 x PCI Express 3.0 x16 Slots (PCIE1/PCIE2/PCIE4: single at x16 (PCIE1); dual at x8 (PCIE1) / x8 (PCIE4); triple at x8 (PCIE1) / x4 (PCIE2) / x4 (PCIE4))
- 1 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 Slot (PCIE6: x4 mode)

Here's a Titan X tested between 8x and 16x for general reference:
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Titan-X-Performance-PCI-E-3-0-x8-vs-x16-851/
 
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spinnnerrr

Member
I still don't understand your explanation per the spec sheet o_O

can you like, dumb that down a lot more? lol

edit: so i should just plug in the sound card into the last PCI slot? then my GPU won't lose any performance?
 
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beers

Moderator
Staff member
can you like, dumb that down a lot more? lol
Populate only one of the PCIE 3.0 slots, 16x.
Populate two of the PCIE 3.0 slots, both are 8x.
Populate three of the PCIE 3.0 slots, it goes 8x, 4x and 4x.

PCIE 2.0 and the 1x slots are on different PCIE lanes so they don't impact the PCIE 3.0 ones which are more limited.
 

spinnnerrr

Member
:) thank you so much for that. I understand how the 'splitting' works now.

SO, in regards to my mobo, slots, 1, 2, and 3 are PCIE 3.0 and the last slot (#4) is 2.0?

edit: oh snap, i didn't even realize that my mobo has PCIe 2.0 slots cause their color blends in with the mobo itself! XD

okay, i'm good now. thank you everyone for your help! much appreciated :)
 
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