8x Vs 16x-Performance Benefits?

[brainlessgaming]

Hello guys!

So my r9 290x arrived and I accidentally plugged it into the 8x slot instead of the 16x slot. Is it worth the hassle of openning up the case and moving it? How much of a performance benefit will it give me if I put it in the 16x slot? 

Thanks!

[Mug]

Most likely zero but I'd do it anyway because you'll probably get round to it eventually

[tp95112]

Nothing noticeable but Id rather just put it back into the 16x slot cause it just looks weird

[Tedol]

If you use it only for gaming - Zero 

[Monarch]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GTX_980_PCI-Express_Scaling/1.html

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/pci_express_scaling_game_performance_analysis_review,1.html

[xBlizzDevious]

Linus did a video on this years ago and the difference was marginal; pretty much within the margin of error.

 

That was back on PCIe 2.0. So in theory, if you're using PCIe 3.0, you can use a 4x slot and not notice the difference between that and a 16x. But that's in theory and from a couple of years ago - so take it with a grain of salt.

[SteveGrabowski0]

I was pretty shocked to see such a big difference in Ryse Son of Rome on PCIE-2.0x16 = PCIE-3.0x8 vs PCIE-3.0x16 in that techpowerup bench.

[Monarch]

I was pretty shocked to see such a big difference in Ryse Son of Rome on PCIE-2.0x16 = PCIE-3.0x8 vs PCIE-3.0x16 in that techpowerup bench.

 

Yeah, they were too. This is what they said:

 

For the majority of games, there is no significant performance difference between x16 3.0 and x8 3.0 (and x16 2.0, which offers the same bandwidth). The average difference is only 1%, which you'd never notice.

 

The most surprising find to me is the huge performance hit some of the latest games take when running on limited PCIe bandwidth. The real shocker here is certainly Ryse: Son of Rome, based on Crytek's latest CryEngine 4. The game seems to constantly stream large amounts of data between the CPU and GPU, taking a large 10% performance hit by switching to the second-fastest x8 3.0 configuration. At x4 1.1, the slowest setting we tested, performance is torn down to less than a third, while running lower resolutions! Shocking!