I'm putting together a new gaming PC and I'm considering whether I should invest in a motherboard that supports PCIe 5.0. My main focus will be gaming, along with some light image manipulation for astrophotography. I'm already set on an AM5 CPU, choosing between the 7800X3D or 7700X for their performance and futureproofing capabilities. However, I'm uncertain if the added expense of PCIe 5.0 is justified, especially since I've read that current GPUs generally don't fully utilize PCIe 4.0. What do you think will be the bottleneck timeline? If it's something that's a few years down the line, I wonder if I should save money now instead of going for the pricier option.
3 Answers
When it comes to the latest GPUs, like the RTX 5090, there's only about a 1% performance drop when using PCIe 4.0. For slower GPUs, the difference is even less noticeable. So, unless your GPU is really pushing the limits, you might not see much gain from switching to PCIe 5.0 anytime soon. Check out this detailed review for more insight: [TechPowerUp Review](https://www.techpowerup.com/review/nvidia-geforce-rtx-5090-pci-express-scaling/29.html).
Yeah, on paper it seems major, but in reality, you likely won't notice much difference in day-to-day use.
Honestly, I wouldn't worry too much about PCIe 5.0 unless you're using a GPU that frequently runs out of VRAM. If you're on something like the 5060Ti, you might want to focus on getting a better budget setup. But, if you're going for NVMe storage, PCIe 5.0 could bring real benefits in that area for certain workloads. Just keep that in mind!
I don't think it's worth it right now. By the time PCIe 4.0 is maxed out, we'll probably already be on something like PCIe 7.0. So unless you really need the latest tech, you might be better off saving your cash for now.
Do you think that in the next five years, we'll actually see a significant performance gap for a wider range of GPUs? Just curious if the tech will really evolve that much.