main card in 2nd PCI-e slot?

[Frans562]

Hey guys, today I purchased a H80i Liquid cooler and upon installing it I noticed that my graphics card got in the way of the radiator so I thought I'd move my card to the 2nd slot, all is well till I read online that using the 2nd pci-e slot can cripple my card's performance, I researched about it and I was getting mixed answers.. my board is a Asus P7P55 LX and both pci-e slot is labeled "x16" on the board.. so my question is, is my graphics card's performance getting throttled down or am I ok? I'm sorta new to building computers so I thought I'd ask experienced people in this site... thanks in advance!

 

[Frans562]

Easiest way to find out it to install GPU-Z http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/, run it and check the box that is labeled "bus interface". Click the "?" and run the test. If it doesn't switch to PCI-E 2.0 x16 then it is not running at the full speed. But, if I am reading the description of your motherboard correctly http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131604, that slot is a full size PCI-E 2.0 x16 slot but it only runs at x4. Unless you have the ability to change it in BIOS, it will run at x4 which is probably going to affect the performance. If it was x8, it isn't really much of a difference even for PCI-E 2.0, but x4 might hurt your FPS.

crud you're right, I noticed some FPS drops while playing some games that would normally play with zero lag, I moved my card back to the first slot and mounted my H80i to the top of my case, it sits funky but it'll have to do, thanks!