I'm considering buying an 8600G graphics card for my setup, but I've heard that it often disables half of the PCIe lanes. I'm planning to eventually add a 9060 XT GPU when I have the budget for it, but I'm curious about how much performance I would actually lose using the 9060 XT in a PCIe x8 slot. Will this setup work well, or should I be worried about significant performance hits? Any insights would be appreciated, thanks!
2 Answers
You might want to check out a benchmark – like one on PCIe 3.0 x16 vs x8. It’s generally found that x16 on PCIe 3.0 is about the same bandwidth as x8 on PCIe 4.0. There are tests out there for the 9060 XT that can give you a better idea of its performance. Just search for 'RX 9060 XT PCIe 3.0' and you should find some good comparisons!
The performance drop you might experience really depends on your setup and usage. Nvidia has been moving towards using 8 lanes for cards like the 4060 Ti and below, and similarly, AMD has followed suit with their lower-end cards. If you're running older PCIe standards like 3.0, you might notice some performance loss, especially if you're close to maxing out your VRAM. For the 9060 XT with 16GB, you probably won’t see any significant difference, but with the 8GB version, it can really impact your gaming experience if you run out of VRAM. If you're planning to go with the 16GB, it sounds like you’ll be safe!
Exactly! As long as you have enough VRAM and are on PCIe 3.0 or higher, you should be fine. The 16GB model really gives you the breathing room you need.
That’s a solid point about VRAM. Without enough, you’ll end up relying on system RAM, which can really choke your performance.
Thanks! I’ll definitely look into that; it sounds useful.