PCI express problems

[hajsveen]

My computer does use a 5820k. I know its only a 28lane processor and i have 2geforece gtx 970 in sli. When im in the BIOS it is written that card 1 in slot nr. 1 is in 16x and card 2 in the third slot is in 8x. So my problem is:

I want to install a sound card to the computer but since the 970 strix cooler is so big all the PCI slots are blocked. My plan is to move the second 970 down to PCI express slot nr.4 and use slot number 3 for my new ASUS Xonar Essence str II.

This sounds like a good idea. But then i read that if the two 970 not where in slot 1 and 3 they wouldnt run in 16x/8x but in 8x/8x. This worried me that the preformance would be decreased. Is this right? Will the two gtx 970 cards run in 8x/8x then?

All help appreaciated

-NEEVS

[Glenwing]

x8 is fine. Graphics cards don't use very much PCI Express bandwidth in gaming.

[wardude1]

8x gen3 is more than fast enought for a titan x so you should be fine

[Dzzope]

x8 gen 3 showed about a 1% difference to a 690 so any single gpu card is still fine. (even in games with near perfect scaling there weren't any issues and a 680 is about half the performance of a 980ti)

[xBlizzDevious]

If I remember correctly, Linus benchmarked the difference between 8x and 16x on PCIe Gen 2 and the difference was low-single-digit percentages.. So if you're using PCIe Gen 3 (although Nvidia doesn't allow it) you wouldn't notice a difference (in theory) if you were using a 4x slot.