My graphics card had performed bad and after upgrading I feel it may have been because I had it connected to a 4x pcie slot

[fatsoh]

does it make a difference which slot i put it in? 16x or 4x?

 

[ShadyHamster]

If it's a mid to high end card then you should be using the 16x slot for the best performance.
Any budget/low end card will work fine in either slot with out performance being effected.

 

[fatsoh]

If it's a mid to high end card then you should be using the 16x slot for the best performance.
Any budget/low end card will work fine in either slot with out performance being effected.

it was a mid/high range card while i had it (a HD 7950 I got for around $400 or so when it first came out)

I always thought that it was strange that it couldn't max source games.

Do you think having it in the 4x slot could have caused performance issues?

 

[werberman]

There's actually an interesting article Tom's Hardware published awhile back that touched on this issue (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/graphics-performance-myths-debunked,3739-3.html) - assuming it's PCIe 2.0 or higher, the performance hit shouldn't be enough to seriously harm graphics performance (given the math, at least), though I suppose it is possible. Why do you have it plugged into a 4x slot, anyway?

 

[fatsoh]

There's actually an interesting article Tom's Hardware published awhile back that touched on this issue (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/graphics-performance-myths-debunked,3739-3.html) - assuming it's PCIe 2.0 or higher, the performance hit shouldn't be enough to seriously harm graphics performance (given the math, at least), though I suppose it is possible. Why do you have it plugged into a 4x slot, anyway?

I was young and reckless.

It was my first PC I build and didn't think it mattered where to put the GPU.

Thanks for article!

 

[werberman]

There's actually an interesting article Tom's Hardware published awhile back that touched on this issue (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/graphics-performance-myths-debunked,3739-3.html) - assuming it's PCIe 2.0 or higher, the performance hit shouldn't be enough to seriously harm graphics performance (given the math, at least), though I suppose it is possible. Why do you have it plugged into a 4x slot, anyway?

I was young and reckless.

It was my first PC I build and didn't think it mattered where to put the GPU.

Thanks for article!

No problem - I would move it if you can, but if not, you're most likely better off investigating other causes for the poor performance.