Is there a performance decrease if the card is installed in a PCIE 2 slot instead of 3?

[Chase3301]

Hi

I recently bought and installed the MSI RX 480 8GB GPU. Running GPU-Z I found out that the card is installed in a PCIE 2 slot although PCIE 3 is supported. Is there a performance decrease if I install the GPU in the PCIE 2 slot? Should I move the card to the PCIE 3 slot?

I have an ASUS Z97K motherboard and it supports PCIE 3. I just didn't install the card in the PCIE 3 slot because the RX 480 is bigger than my previous card and I had too much cable clutter in that area.

 

[xFeaRDom]

Some people say that there is no performance loss and some people say there is a performance loss.

I believe I am currently using an older board and it is either PCI-E or PCI-E 2.0, and it still runs like if it was on PCI-E 3.0, and it runs how it is meant to. There probably is some 'Performance Loss' but it isn't enough to seriously affect the GPU to the point it is noticeable.

So it will reduce the performance, but not too much to notice any difference.

 

[pete_101]

You want to use the top slot. Not only is the lower PCIe slot 2.0 but it's only 4x in a 16x slot, where as the top is a full 16x and 3.0
It's possible that 2.0 4x would be fine, but when you have a slot that's 8 times faster and is the one made for the primary graphics card, you really should use it.

 

[xFeaRDom]

You want to use the top slot. Not only is the lower PCIe slot 2.0 but it's only 4x in a 16x slot, where as the top is a full 16x and 3.0
It's possible that 2.0 4x would be fine, but when you have a slot that's 8 times faster and is the one made for the primary graphics card, you really should use it.

Some Motherboards are older and do not have PCI-E 3.0, and have PCI-E 2.0 or 1.0, so he cannot necessarily do that. By saying it supports 3.0 is because PCI-E 3.0 is Backwards Compatible (So PCI-E 3.0 GPUs can be used in 2.0 and 1.0, with little to no performance loss.

 

[pete_101]

You want to use the top slot. Not only is the lower PCIe slot 2.0 but it's only 4x in a 16x slot, where as the top is a full 16x and 3.0
It's possible that 2.0 4x would be fine, but when you have a slot that's 8 times faster and is the one made for the primary graphics card, you really should use it.

Some Motherboards are older and do not have PCI-E 3.0, and have PCI-E 2.0 or 1.0, so he cannot necessarily do that. By saying it supports 3.0 is because PCI-E 3.0 is Backwards Compatible (So PCI-E 3.0 GPUs can be used in 2.0 and 1.0, with little to no performance loss.

I looked up the specs for his motherboard, the top slot is 3.0 and the lower is 2.0 so moving the card to the top slot is the logical thing to do.

 

[xFeaRDom]

You want to use the top slot. Not only is the lower PCIe slot 2.0 but it's only 4x in a 16x slot, where as the top is a full 16x and 3.0
It's possible that 2.0 4x would be fine, but when you have a slot that's 8 times faster and is the one made for the primary graphics card, you really should use it.

Some Motherboards are older and do not have PCI-E 3.0, and have PCI-E 2.0 or 1.0, so he cannot necessarily do that. By saying it supports 3.0 is because PCI-E 3.0 is Backwards Compatible (So PCI-E 3.0 GPUs can be used in 2.0 and 1.0, with little to no performance loss.

I looked up the specs for his motherboard, the top slot is 3.0 and the lower is 2.0 so moving the card to the top slot is the logical thing to do.

It may be logical, but the performance loss is minimal, and will not affect it at all basically, and as he doesn't want too much cable clutter, then the PCI-E 2.0 Slot is what he went with, and there's probably like 1% performance loss, if that. I've installed my GTX 970 on a PCI-E 2.0 or 1.0 (Not Sure) and it runs like the rest of the 970s, so it really doesn't make a difference.

So the answer to the OP:

Installing it in the PCI-E 3.0 Slot (Will not really do anything) but is more logical and is better due to an extremely minimal performance increase - Will not make any difference at all.

And PCI-E 2.0, as you probably like it, has more room for cables, so the management is better, and it still runs basically exactly how a RX 480 is meant to run.

So no need to worry about using 2.0

Also, this may help you: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-2438733/pci-backwards-compatible-pci.html

Claims on this is no performance loss, so yeah. No need to worry!

 

[pete_101]

It may be logical, but the performance loss is minimal, and will not affect it at all basically, and as he doesn't want too much cable clutter, then the PCI-E 2.0 Slot is what he went with, and there's probably like 1% performance loss, if that. I've installed my GTX 970 on a PCI-E 2.0 or 1.0 (Not Sure) and it runs like the rest of the 970s, so it really doesn't make a difference.

So the answer to the OP:

Installing it in the PCI-E 3.0 Slot (Will not really do anything) but is more logical and is better due to an extremely minimal performance increase - Will not make any difference at all.

And PCI-E 2.0, as you probably like it, has more room for cables, so the management is better, and it still runs basically exactly how a RX 480 is meant to run.

So no need to worry about using 2.0

Also, this may help you: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-2438733/pci-backwards-compatible-pci.html

Claims on this is no performance loss, so yeah. No need to worry!

You did read the part where I said the PCIe slot was only 4x as well as being 2.0? That does make a difference, I found this chart in the archives

 

[xFeaRDom]

It may be logical, but the performance loss is minimal, and will not affect it at all basically, and as he doesn't want too much cable clutter, then the PCI-E 2.0 Slot is what he went with, and there's probably like 1% performance loss, if that. I've installed my GTX 970 on a PCI-E 2.0 or 1.0 (Not Sure) and it runs like the rest of the 970s, so it really doesn't make a difference.

So the answer to the OP:

Installing it in the PCI-E 3.0 Slot (Will not really do anything) but is more logical and is better due to an extremely minimal performance increase - Will not make any difference at all.

And PCI-E 2.0, as you probably like it, has more room for cables, so the management is better, and it still runs basically exactly how a RX 480 is meant to run.

So no need to worry about using 2.0

Also, this may help you: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-2438733/pci-backwards-compatible-pci.html

Claims on this is no performance loss, so yeah. No need to worry!

You did read the part where I said the PCIe slot was only 4x as well as being 2.0? That does make a difference, I found this chart in the archives

That's just one test, and not for his GPU. But even so a 10% performance loss on a GPU that can run 1440p like a walk in a park, using it at 1080p will basically not change anything. And also, if he overclocks it, that'll increase the performance anyway, so lets just say 5% performance loss?

Still nothing major, and as he used it in the slot already, and not noticed any terrible performance loss, then there is no need to worry.