Sound Card In 2nd PCIe 3 Slot

[Capt Proton]

I think I already know what the answer is, but thought I would ask anyway.

If I put a sound card in the second PCIe slot controlled by the cpu, then both slots are going to drop to X8 aren't they?

[profJim]

You can confirm your theory by running GPU-z and posting the screen-shot.

[parsec]

Did you run out of PCIe slots? Is your sound card more than a PCIe x4 interface? Of course, you may not have an available x2 or x4 slot, so are stuck using the other.

Prof. Jim's test should work, and your boards manual may tell you what will happen, although it probably only mentions full length video cards being connected.

[Capt Proton]

God idea to confirm, however, I am fairly certain I have it right. After all, is there are only 16 lanes available, and th slots are X16, then it probably only breaks down to multiples of 2, i.e. 2, 4, 8 and 16.

[synack]

intel z77 chipset spec says 16 lanes total for pcie3. ASRock specs for your motherboard confirm this. so yes, it probably will split x8/x8 if both slots are populated.

[Capt Proton]

So, my GTX 590 is PCIe 2 and the slots are PCIe 3. Any chance the vid card is actually getting the same bandwidth with 8 X Gen 3 as 16 X Gen 2, or does the vid card, not being Gen 3, only have the bandwidth of Gen 2 available?

[synack]

PCIe 2 speed x8 lanes most likely. Lanes are lanes regardless of the PCIe protocol running on them.

Syn

[parsec]

Does any video card actually use PCIe 3.0 bandwidth now? I see that some NVIDIA mid-range cards are PCIe 3.0 rated, but I doubt they really use it.

[Capt Proton]

Does any video card actually use PCIe 3.0 bandwidth now? I see that some NVIDIA mid-range cards are PCIe 3.0 rated, but I doubt they really use it.

Relevance?