3070 Running at 8x instead of 16x

[Sanguineparrot]

Specs for reference:

ROG B550e

5800x

ASUS KO 3070

 

 

So I finished my build recently and did all my driver installations and the like, but I noticed my 3070 was running at Pcie 3.0 8x by default. I was able to force Pcie 4.0 8x through bios settings, but I am confused as to why I am unable to get 4.0 16x. The slot it is in does not share bandwidth with any other ports (The card is in PCIEX16_2).

[WhitetailAni]

PCIEX16_2 can only run up to 8x, never 16x.

If you want to run it at 16x, put it in PCIEX16_1.

[TheSLSAMG]

The slot is physically X16 but is wired as X8, so you cannot get any more than X8 bandwidth out of it.

[Sanguineparrot]

Thanks @FakeKGB and @TheSLSAMG.  I literally read that right after I posted, I pulled a dumb.

[Sanguineparrot]

A follow up though. As far as I am aware I do not think switching it to the 16x would yield much performance difference for a card like the 3070. Am I right in assuming this?

[Grabhanem]

8 minutes ago, Sanguineparrot said:

A follow up though. As far as I am aware I do not think switching it to the 16x would yield much performance difference for a card like the 3070. Am I right in assuming this?

Probably not. What could yield more performance, though, is getting the card's fans further from your case's PSU basement, since that can restrict airflow and modern cards' boosting algorithms are very temperature-dependent.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

18 minutes ago, Sanguineparrot said:

A follow up though. As far as I am aware I do not think switching it to the 16x would yield much performance difference for a card like the 3070. Am I right in assuming this?

It depends. 

4.0 8x is about a 3.0 16x, and switching from 3.0 16x to 4.0 16x gives slight improvments usually, but in some pcie link intensive things, a much larger.w