Random (and probably stupid) Question

Yori · 01-29-2010, 07:49 PM

As the title says, this is a very random, and probably very stupid, question on graphics cards and PCI-E.

Being the somewhat slow person I am, I just now ran GPU-Z to see more detailed information on my 5770. Well, when I looked at the information, it said my card was running at PCI-E x16(x8), which it explained meant that it supported PCI-E x16, but was running at x8. Would there be any noticeable difference if it was running at x16?

furball zen · 01-29-2010, 09:26 PM

Double the speed? But i think the 5770s are 128bit, would that have something to do with it? Maybe check the BIOS on the mobo, maybe it has a control setting.

Yori · 01-29-2010, 09:47 PM

I don't think there is a control setting in the bios, as I've gotten fairly aquainted with all the settings and such in the year I've owned it. I've heard that the motherboard I have can only run SLI in x8, so maybe that has something to do with it. It doesn't really seem to be affecting my gaming that much at least. I'll see if switching it to the other x16 slot will change anything.

obobskivich · 02-21-2010, 12:58 AM

sorry to revive but:

naw it doesn't make a difference, x8 2.0 is ~ x16 1.0 is ~ lots of bandwidth

the memory interface (as furball mentioned) is related but doesn't make a difference here either

unless:
your application demands all sorts of bandwidth to accomplish things (like GTA 4 and its nasty 2GB VRAM recommendation)

furball zen · 02-21-2010, 01:18 AM

Holy shit Batman! :)

ugzkmk · 02-21-2010, 12:03 PM

oh hay gui