GPU running at x8 pciE1.1

[Goorath]

Hey lads, got an Asus M2N68AM-SE2 with an ooold athlon 245. I bought this PC from a friend. Upgraded him a little (WDC 1TB, 500W zalman, LED mon., and a GPU). When I got it it had GeForce 9500GT with 1GB DDR2. I know that MoBo supports pcie 1.1 it's ok but that GeForce run at x16. After a upgrade - Sapphire R7 250 512SP(stream proc.) 2GB GDDR5 GPU-Z shows card is able to run 3.0 x16 but run 1.1 x8 WTF? CPU-Z shows link width x8 but max support x16. I KNOW there is probably no bottleneck in there maybe just alittle but why I got x8 with newer card??? Thanx

 

[clutchc]

It is never going to run beyond PCIe 1.1 on that board. But I can't explain why it is only at x8 lanes. Run GPU-Z and do the render test. See if it changes when it is under load.

 

[Karadjgne]

It's because it's an AMD card. Several years ago, amd changed their power delivery system in their gpus right at pcie 2.1. Some 2.1 cards ran the old system so were compatible, but most ran the new system so are incompatible. Only nvidia cards are backwards compatible to pcie 1.1. Pcie 1.0 is entirely different and standalone for both amd and nvidia. Best bet would be a 8800/9800 GT 512 upto the gtx780ti as sometimes Maxwell gpus can have bios issues between legacy and uefi bios, depends on the card itself. Usually limited to the 750/750ti series.

http://www.overclock.net/a/the-final-answer-to-the-controversial-pcie-x16-version-compatibility

 

[spentshells]

go into your bios and try to change the bandwidth to 16x manually, it may be set that way due to the last card (or something)

If you can not figure out the bios by looking at it please try to reset to default settings and try again.

On the level though without any real support to be offered, the performance difference between 16 and 8 lanes of pcie bandwidth will be negligible at best.

 

[Goorath]

Oh, I forgot to mention that I already tried Render test in GPU-Z: without any success, still pcie 1.1 x8 but Caradjgnes answer makes very sense to me. Spentshells - no such option in my oooooold bios I'm glad that there's an option to overclock CPU. What i wanna say, there's not much options in that BIOS.
Nevertheless, I'm thinking about buying either Pentium G4400(or i3 depends on money) or I'll wait for new AMD's flagship ZEN and if their prices won't be a problem ZEN's no. one. Thanks for your time lads