Question Does 8x PCIE 3.0 vs 16x PCIE Make a difference? (3080Ti)

[Gyoung123]

Hey there,

I recently found that my long, long used HDDs from my first built were failing and therefore needed to be replaced (Unplugging them solved a whole host if freezing issues I was having.)

Besides these, I currently run my OS And main files on a 1TB NVME And have an old 250GB SSD for other random storage.

I tend to download a lot of games at a time, and wanted to get another 2TB NVME Drive. However, I have an Asus Strix B40F Gaming motherboard which states that when the 2nd M.2 slot is used, the 1st PCIE lane (e.g. my GPU) Switches from 16 x PCIE to 8x. I looked in the motherboard manual and believe its PCIE 3.0

Would this have a significant impact? I heard 8x PCIE 4.0 wasn't too bad but I'm not sure about 3.0.

I tried findintg a YT video but could only find a test with a 3080, and running at 1080 so the GPU utilisation was only at about 80%.... So didn't seem like the best test.

BACKUP Question: Would getting a 2TB SSD (SATA) Be a bad investment, are they that much slower that it will have a significant impact or can I still expect to run Unreal Engine 5 games etc without too many problems?

Specs:

Zotax 3080 TI OC
Asus Strix B450f Gaming
WD Blue 1TB NVME
5800X3D
Viper Patriot Steel 3600MHz 2x8GB

 

[geofelt]

Pcie 3/4 will make a small difference, but only when the strongest of graphics cards are used.

Nothing wrong with a sata ssd. It takes a sequential benchmark to tell the difference.
Here is an amusing video on that:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DKLA7w9eeA

 

[Gyoung123]

Pcie 3/4 will make a small difference, but only when the strongest of graphics cards are used.

Nothing wrong with a sata ssd. It takes a sequential benchmark to tell the difference.
Here is an amusing video on that:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DKLA7w9eeA

Ah good to know on the SSD! I might just go that route then.

But, ignoring PCIE 3.0 vs 4.0, is this still the case with PCIE 3.0 x8 vs x16? As those are my options at the moment.

 

[SkyNetRising]

But, ignoring PCIE 3.0 vs 4.0, is this still the case with PCIE 3.0 x8 vs x16?

You'll loose ~ 3-4% performance.
Here analysis for RTX 4090. For RTX 3080 ti impact should be less than that.

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/nvidia-geforce-rtx-4090-pci-express-scaling/28.html