[SOLVED] GPU-Z says PCIe x4 when it should be x16.

[bobbyboi]

My cousin get's a consistent 10 FPS on games like CS:GO and American Truck Simulator despite having an excellent graphics card (AMD Radeon RX 580). We found out his PCIe was x16 @ x4 in GPU-Z and knew it was reducing his performance. When we enable his integrated GPU (AMD Radeon Vega 3) he gets a consistent 40 FPS. This is a massive difference, especially considering his GPU was brand new, came from ASUS and is MEANT to perform a lot better. Now just when we thought we could improve his speed we noticed his motherboard (A320M) only has a single PCIe slot for his GPU.

Please explain how we can fix this issue!

Thanks, Seth.

 

[BogdanH]

When asking such questions, you should provide relevant hardware info.. for example, what CPU you have?
Anyway, as you can read from mo-bo manual, Athlon CPU only has PCIe x4.

 

[bobbyboi]

When asking such questions, you should provide relevant hardware info.. for example, what CPU you have?
Anyway, as you can read from mo-bo manual, Athlon CPU only has PCIe x4.

CPU: AMD Athlon 3000G
GPU: AMD Radeon RX 580 and AMD Radeon Vega 3
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX (2x4GB) DDR4 2666MHz
Motherboard: A320M-H
Storage: 3TB HDD
PSU: Unknown brand, 600W
Fans: 2 intake (front), 3 exhaust (rear and top)

Also, how does a CPU interfere with a GPU's PCIe slot?

 

[DSzymborski]

CPU: AMD Athlon 3000G
GPU: AMD Radeon RX 580 and AMD Radeon Vega 3
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX (2x4GB) DDR4 2666MHz
Motherboard: A320M-H
Storage: 3TB HDD
PSU: Unknown brand, 600W
Fans: 2 intake (front), 3 exhaust (rear and top)

Also, how does a CPU interfere with a GPU's PCIe slot?

You're providing an excellent example as to why complete specs are asked for (and exact PSU is always necessary since it's a safety part). GPU's don't "provide" the lanes, the CPU/chipset do. The Athlon 3000G only provides four PCIE 3.0 lanes for the discrete GPU.

That being said, this is unlikely to be the problem anyway; the RX 580 is modest enough that FPS differences should be fairly small. Has any benchmarking been done? Have drivers been properly installed?

 

[bobbyboi]

You're providing an excellent example as to why complete specs are asked for (and exact PSU is always necessary since it's a safety part). GPU's don't "provide" the lanes, the CPU/chipset do. The Athlon 3000G only provides four PCIE 3.0 lanes for the discrete GPU.

That being said, this is unlikely to be the problem anyway; the RX 580 is modest enough that FPS differences should be fairly small. Has any benchmarking been done? Have drivers been properly installed?

I've seen YouTube videos where they show their FPS count, temperature, etc as well as what CPU and GPU they're using. I even saw a video getting an average of 120 FPS with the exact same specs my cousin has. I have gone to Device Manager and looked for driver updates however I have not gone to the AMD software to see if it's updated to it's latest version.

EDIT: I also searched up and it says AMD Athlon 3000G supports 12 PCIe 3.0 lanes (PCIe 3.0 x8 for graphics + PCIe 3.0 x4 for NVMe SSD).

 

[DSzymborski]

I've seen YouTube videos where they show their FPS count, temperature, etc as well as what CPU and GPU they're using. I even saw a video getting an average of 120 FPS with the exact same specs my cousin has. I have gone to Device Manager and looked for driver updates however I have not gone to the AMD software to see if it's updated to it's latest version.

EDIT: I also searched up and it says AMD Athlon 3000G supports 12 PCIe 3.0 lanes (PCIe 3.0 x8 for graphics + PCIe 3.0 x4 for NVMe SSD).

WikiChip is usually good at this technical data, but again, it doesn't matter. There should be limited differences in performance between 3.0 x4 and 3.0 x16 on an RX 580. That there is extremely poor performance means that something else is the matter.

The AMD software is easily the best way to do this. If the proper Radeon drivers aren't installed, this is all very premature.

 

[CountMike]

Is that x4 under load ?

 

[BogdanH]

You're making things confusing. On first post you show PRIME A320M-A motherboard, then you say yours is A320M-H (which I couldn't find on Asus website). For A320M-A, Asus says:
AMD Athlon™ with Radeon™ Vega Graphics Processors
1 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (max at x4 mode)
-means: no matter what Athlon you have, it will only be PCIe x4 on this motherboard.

PCIe x4 is (obviously) 4-times slower than PCIe x16 and that does have impact on communication between CPU and graphic card.
Solution: you either change CPU or motherboard.. or use internal GPU.

 

[bobbyboi]

WikiChip is usually good at this technical data, but again, it doesn't matter. There should be limited differences in performance between 3.0 x4 and 3.0 x16 on an RX 580. That there is extremely poor performance means that something else is the matter.

The AMD software is easily the best way to do this. If the proper Radeon drivers aren't installed, this is all very premature.

Okay so should I get him to install new drivers on the AMD software?

 

[bobbyboi]

You're making things confusing. On first post you show PRIME A320M-A motherboard, then you say yours is A320M-H (which I couldn't find on Asus website). For A320M-A, Asus says:
AMD Athlon™ with Radeon™ Vega Graphics Processors
1 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (max at x4 mode)
-means: no matter what Athlon you have, it will only be PCIe x4 on this motherboard.

PCIe x4 is (obviously) 4-times slower than PCIe x16 and that does have impact on communication between CPU and graphic card.
Solution: you either change CPU or motherboard.. or use internal GPU.

Yeah he has the integrated graphics you mentioned. If he upgrades his CPU will he get around 100 FPS since he currently gets 10.

 

[bobbyboi]

Is that x4 under load ?

I wasn't able to get him to run a stress test as we're communicating via Discord screen share and everything is quite difficult. I'm waiting to go to his during these school holidays to manually see what's up myself.

 

[drea.drechsler]

I wasn't able to get him to run a stress test as we're communicating via Discord screen share and everything is quite difficult. I'm waiting to go to his during these school holidays to manually see what's up myself.

Just have him click the question mark - the "?"- on the GPU screen that's right beside the "...x4 1.1". That opens a little 3d image that will mildly stress the GPU.

The reason to do that is many times GPU's will put themselves in a low-power state, with lowered bandwidth, when it's not needed for rendering 3d scenes, for instance.

 

[bobbyboi]

Just have him click the question mark - the "?"- on the GPU screen that's right beside the "...x4 1.1". That opens a little 3d image that will mildly stress the GPU.

The reason to do that is many times GPU's will put themselves in a low-power state, with lowered bandwidth, when it's not needed for rendering 3d scenes, for instance.

Ohhhh, also does it take a certain amount of time to finish (like a render) or can you leave it running for however long you like.

 

[drea.drechsler]

Ohhhh, also does it take a certain amount of time to finish (like a render) or can you leave it running for however long you like.

You can dismiss it whenever you want. It's not a stress test or benchmark...it's just meant to wake up the GPU fully so it uses the bandwidth of the PCIe bus to it's capabilities.

 

[bobbyboi]

You can dismiss it whenever you want. It's not a stress test or benchmark...it's just meant to wake up the GPU fully so it uses the bandwidth of the PCIe bus to it's capabilities.

Oh my god, I just found out why he was having an issue. Turns out his HDMI cord wasn't plugged into his GPU slot. It was in the motherboard and so because the motherboard runs off of integrated graphics it decided to use that one. I told him to swap it over and boom, his FPS has substantially increased. Obviously we can work on it's performance by upgrading the CPU for the PCIe to transform to x16 but for now, it's all he needs! Thanks for all the help anyways!