pci-express x16

fade2green514

fade2green514

Active Member
this is my video card slot obviously.
it says my link width is x8??! isnt it supposed to be x16??
cpu-z says link width is x8 and max. supported is x8??

AHH! will this effect my performance alot, and even if it doesnt-SHOULDNT IT BE AT x16??!:confused:
 
Some SLI motherboards apparently only support 8x in SLI mode. Your specs looks like you don't have SLI, but perhaps it's in SLI mode?
 
The_Other_One said:
Some SLI motherboards apparently only support 8x in SLI mode. Your specs looks like you don't have SLI, but perhaps it's in SLI mode?
Click to expand...
I agree with you, i bet its because somehow its thinking its in SLI mode and running at 8x each.
 
Yasu said:
If there really is a problem it's probably because your mobo was made by ECS...
Click to expand...
IMO ECS is a good brand and peple under rate it. I liked it better then my soyo and asus mobo's. PLus if it said X16 on the box, NO BRAND is going to make it X8
 
ECS is cheap and I've never had good luck with them. Back in high school, my comp class built about 10 machines, and about 5 of them had major issues(all ECS mobos) My old laptop was ECS, and it never worked that well!

As for the problem at hand, again, check your SLI settings. I'm not saying they would set the mobo to ONLY 8x. I mean, the 8x slot is smaller than the 16x, correct? I still think there might be a setting wrong somewhere. Or, what about those things on the mobo you have to flip to change from SLI or single display?
 
There shouldnt be any performance decrease if it runs at 8x anyway, since cards havent pushed the AGP 8x bandwidth barrier yet.
 
geoff5093 said:
There shouldnt be any performance decrease if it runs at 8x anyway, since cards havent pushed the AGP 8x bandwidth barrier yet.
Click to expand...
even if they haven't, its still a different part in the chain to get all the information to the video card, and therefore would slow it down cutting fps down.
i don't want that!
basically what my computer says (under the drivers, temp settings, and clock settings) is that its using an x8 link width and so does cpu-z. cpu-z also says that its x8, with a maximum of x8. if theres a jumper on the motherboard that i need to switch then help!!! ill look through my motherboards manual.
maybe ill even try switching the pci-e slot that the card is in... if worst comes to worse...
hmm.. or maybe its even a bios setting.. you never know :)
tried going into "geforce 7800gt" under "multi gpu sli" or whatever, and it told me it didnt recognize a second card and that i could add one. the funny thing is that in the manual for my motherboard it says it supports 2 x16 slots lol... iono.
ill have to figureee this out!

thanks all, more help appreciated.
bump
 
Last edited:
uhhh ohhh bad news.
nVIDIA PCI Express
Doubles the bandwidth of AGP 8X, delivering 4GB/s of upstream data transfer and 4 GB/s of downstream data transfer.
from the ecs website. however, just because the name of the slot is x16 doesnt mean it runs at 16x.. lemme do a little research.
EDIT:
from www.amd.com :
A PCIE link with only one lane is an x1 link – add another lane, it becomes an x2 link, and so on. Each lane is bidirectional, can send and receive data simultaneously, and can provide 250MBps of bandwidth in both directions.
wouldnt that mean that an 8x link width ultimately = x16??.. and therefore wouldnt like an x4 link show up as two lanes in windows??
wow.. that seems to work like hypertransport. i mean, it makes perfect sense doesnt it?
 
Last edited:
so is there an official answer to my question?? :
are they two x8 slots, or are they each x16 that switch to x8 when in SLI?
BUMP
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top