Will putting a GTX 1050 Ti 4GB in PCIe 3.0 x4 slot affect performance?

[rczrider]

I'm building a new PC and didn't pay attention to the configuration of the motherboard, which puts the only PCIe 3.0 x16 slot above the only PCIe x1 slot. The GTX 1050 Ti takes up two slots, which effectively blocks the x1. I have a second PCIe 3.0 slot, but it's only x4 (which confuses me, since it's the same size as the x16).

Anyway, this my question: will putting the 1050 in the x4 slot negatively affect performance? It's not a crazy awesome card to begin with, but I don't want to limit what I can get out of it.

The Nvidia specs (http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-1050-ti/specifications) claim memory clock of 7Gbps and bandwidth of 112GB/s. Which of these numbers is the one relevant to my question about performance?

My understanding is that PCIe 3.0 spec gives us a theoretical throughput of roughly:
x4: 4GB/s (32Gbps)
x8: 8GB/s (64Gbps)
x16: 16GB/s (128Gbps)

If the card's memory clock of 7Gbps is the relevant information, then x4 is plenty. If the bandwidth, then I would definitely need the x16 to make full use of it.

Thanks for any and all feedback!

 

[maxalge]

I'm building a new PC and didn't pay attention to the configuration of the motherboard, which puts the only PCIe 3.0 x16 slot above the only PCIe x1 slot. The GTX 1050 Ti takes up two slots, which effectively blocks the x1. I have a second PCIe 3.0 slot, but it's only x4 (which confuses me, since it's the same size as the x16).

Anyway, this my question: will putting the 1050 in the x4 slot negatively affect performance? It's not a crazy awesome card to begin with, but I don't want to limit what I can get out of it.

The Nvidia specs (http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-1050-ti/specifications) claim memory clock of 7Gbps and bandwidth of 112GB/s. Which of these numbers is the one relevant to my question about performance?

My understanding is that PCIe 3.0 spec gives us a theoretical throughput of roughly:
x4: 4GB/s (32Gbps)
x8: 8GB/s (64Gbps)
x16: 16GB/s (128Gbps)

If the card's memory clock of 7Gbps is the relevant information, then x4 is plenty. If the bandwidth, then I would definitely need the x16 to make full use of it.

Thanks for any and all feedback!

get a pcie riser

then you can place them anywhere in the case

 

[aripa_fulgerului]

I have a similar question. Will a PCIe 3.0 x4 connection bottleneck somehow a GTX 1050ti ?

MOBO: https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/B250M-PRO-VH/Specification
CPU: https://ark.intel.com/products/97453/Intel-Pentium-Processor-G4600-3M-Cache-3_60-GHz

edit: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-3585157/pcie-connection-bottleneck-gtx-1050ti.html

 

[kiddhawkhunter]

So I’ve done a little testing but a little more extreme as in trying to run it at 1x for gaming(why not the riser was $7 and I might use it for something) so I didn’t do a lot of testing but bf1 ran about 37 avg but dipping into the 20s on 1080p ultra. Compared to normally pretty much locked at 60 with the same test. About the same in Doom. Weird thing, in synthetics like timespy and unigine superposition my tests were about the same both times and we’re pretty average

 

[kiddhawkhunter]

So I’ve done a little testing but a little more extreme as in trying to run it at 1x for gaming(why not the riser was $7 and I might use it for something) so I didn’t do a lot of testing but bf1 ran about 37 avg but dipping into the 20s on 1080p ultra. Compared to normally pretty much locked at 60 with the same test. About the same in Doom. Weird thing, in synthetics like timespy and unigine superposition my tests were about the same both times and we’re pretty average

 

[Karadjgne]

Swap the connections. Use the x16 for the gpu and whatever is in the x1 slot can be used in the x4, just make sure to stick it all the way towards the back of the case. An x16 slot is nothing more than a very long x1, x4, x8, x16 header.

Different parts of the software will use different parts of the x16 slot, so figure most of the standard graphics are using the x8/x16 sections, but those 2 specific parts are using the x4 pins, so will be the same in either slot. In crypto-mining, most of the different kinds only use the x1 in any header other than the primary card, so ppl will hijack an x1 slot by cutting the front side off and using the x1 to add full size vga cards. Some mobo's even come with open ended x1 headers for that reason.