Is it possible to use only 15 PCIe lanes for GPU?

[Guest]

I was wondering if you could tweak a BIOS to limit a GPU's lane usage to 15x PCIe lanes and reserve 1x lane for a WLAN card or a capture card or something of that sort.  Is it possible?

[79wjd]

No, but a GPU won't be bottlenecked by x8 anyway, so it won't matter. Plus a lot of x1/x4 slots, wifi slots, and M.2 slots on boards are run off the chipsets lanes and won't even affect the 16 lanes provided by the CPU.

[Mira Yurizaki]

Short answer: No.

 

Long answer: Plug the card into an x1 slot unless the remaining slots in your motherboard are taken and the only one is an SLI/Crossfire x16 slot. Anything going into a slot not meant for graphics will route through the chipset, not the processor's PCIe lanes (which is where graphics will go to).

 

If you do plug in the card into a graphics PCIe slot however, the processor will configure the setup as x8/x8. There's no way around this.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, djdwosk97 said:

No, but a GPU won't be bottlenecked by x8 anyway, so it won't matter. Plus a lot of x1/x4 slots, wifi slots, and M.2 slots on boards are run off the chipsets lanes and won't even affect the 16 lanes provided by the CPU.

 

Unless it's my board XD.  No integrated WLAN support from 2012.  It's an ATX, and the only processor I know of that can support the Gen 3.0 x16 lanes is the 3770K... But I have an i5-2400.  Oh well 

[79wjd]

1 minute ago, VPrime said:

Unless it's my board XD.  No integrated WLAN support from 2012.  It's an ATX, and the only processor I know of that can support the Gen 3.0 x16 lanes is the 3770K... But I have an i5-2400.  Oh well 

x8 still won't be an issue and are you sure none of the PCIE slots run off the chipset? (because that's very strange).

[Guest]

1 minute ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Short answer: No.

 

Long answer: Plug the card into an x1 slot unless the remaining slots in your motherboard are taken and the only one is an SLI/Crossfire x16 slot.

 

If you do this however, the processor will configure the setup as x8/x8. There's no way around this.

 

Oh well that's actually fine since most games don't experience bottlenecking in Gen 2.0 x16, so x8 Gen 3.0 is ~ same bandwidth, so that should, in theory, be fine!

[Mira Yurizaki]

Just now, djdwosk97 said:

x8 still won't be an issue. 

Correction (please don't hurt me): PCIe 3.0 x8 won't be an issue. You can go down to about PCIe 1.1 x8 before performance starts to appreciably drop.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, djdwosk97 said:

x8 still won't be an issue and are you sure none of the PCIE slots run off the chipset? (because that's very strange).

Dis muh BOARDDDD http://www.ebay.com/itm/171823154293

[Guest]

1 minute ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Correction (please don't hurt me): PCIe 3.0 x8 won't be an issue. You can go down to about PCIe 1.1 x8 before performance starts to appreciably drop.

Cool stuff!  .....Now I just need to find a PCIe WLAN card that isn't potato.

[79wjd]

3 minutes ago, VPrime said:

Dis muh BOARDDDD http://www.ebay.com/itm/171823154293

• One PCI Express 3.0 x16 add-in card connector

• One PCI Express 2.0 x4 bus add-in card connector from the PCH

• One PCI Express 2.0 x1 bus add-in card connector from the PCH

• Three Conventional PCI bus add-in card connectors from the PCH via a PCI bridge

 

PCH = chipset

https://downloadmirror.intel.com/20953/eng/DZ77SL-50K_TechProdSpec02.pdf

[Electronics Wizardy]

6 minutes ago, VPrime said:

Oh well that's actually fine since most games don't experience bottlenecking in Gen 2.0 x16, so x8 Gen 3.0 is ~ same bandwidth, so that should, in theory, be fine!

Your gpu will still run at 16x, and your wifi card will be at 1x. 

 

The chipset has anouther 16 lanes for nics, usb3, sata, and other cards.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

• One PCI Express 3.0 x16 add-in card connector

• One PCI Express 2.0 x4 bus add-in card connector from the PCH

• One PCI Express 2.0 x1 bus add-in card connector from the PCH

• Three Conventional PCI bus add-in card connectors from the PCH via a PCI bridge

 

PCH = chipset

https://downloadmirror.intel.com/20953/eng/DZ77SL-50K_TechProdSpec02.pdf

 

Sooooooo what's that mean exactly?  Can you translate that for me?  I want a x1 WLAN card or something, and all the x16 lanes for my graphics card.

[79wjd]

Just now, VPrime said:

Sooooooo what's that mean exactly?  Can you translate that for me?  I want a x1 WLAN card or something, and all the x16 lanes for my graphics card.

The GPU will run at x16. Anything in the other PCIE slots (x1 and x4) will run off the chipsets lanes. 

[Guest]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

Your gpu will still run at 16x, and your wifi card will be at 1x. 

 

The chipset has anouther 16 lanes for nics, usb3, sata, and other cards.

 

Oh thanks!  I thought Intel was putting planned obsolence to the extreme in their board.  I am a little salty about the fact that my case' front panel USB 3.0 cable is like touching a capacitor on the board RIGHT NEXT THE THE SLOT.

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, VPrime said:

Oh thanks!  I thought Intel was putting planned obsolence to the extreme in their board.  I am a little salty about the fact that my case' front panel USB 3.0 cable is like touching a capacitor on the board RIGHT NEXT THE THE SLOT.

That would be the connector's falt not the board, but that board puts the pcie slot in a very weird place.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

That would be the connector's falt not the board, but that board puts the pcie slot in a very weird place.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwaQzL0vJPfWdzkxYUtKMnZYTzA/view?usp=sharing This is what I am talking about

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, VPrime said:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwaQzL0vJPfWdzkxYUtKMnZYTzA/view?usp=sharing This is what I am talking about

Bad connector design, not bad board design.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Bad connector design, not bad board design.

Bleh.  Well, can't fix that  I hope it'll still work though... can't tell if it is securely in or not

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, VPrime said:

Bleh.  Well, can't fix that  I hope it'll still work though... can't tell if it is securely in or not

dremel time.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

dremel time.

The manual for the case was pretty difficult to understand.  Apparently, I can put a 2.5" SSD on the side of the case inside the case, but the diagram of where to put it in the Z1 Neo is so poor that I don't believe it.  I have a 3.5" bay adaptor and that works well enough for the Ultra II that I have.