I'm planning on building a new PC with a 9070 XT graphics card, and I'm wondering if it's worth spending an extra $50 for a motherboard that supports PCIe 5.0 instead of sticking with PCIe 4.0. Some people say there's not much difference in performance, especially with a 16GB VRAM card, but I've noticed some frame drops with lower VRAM cards. Can anyone clarify if PCIe 5.0 makes a real difference for a setup like mine?
4 Answers
I'd say go for PCIe 5.0 if you can swing it. It helps ensure you won't bottleneck your GPU in the future, especially if you plan on adding more devices like NVMe SSDs that take up lanes. You might not need all that bandwidth now, but it gives you more flexibility for the future!
Honestly, I wouldn't stress too much about PCIe 5.0 right now. If you're using a 16GB VRAM card like the 9070 XT, you probably won't see much difference at all. Most games won't fully load your video memory and the performance boost you'll get is minimal—maybe around 1% at most. Just save your cash for something else!
It's hard to justify the extra cost, honestly. Current high-end GPUs barely saturate PCIe 4.0 bandwidth. By the time we see a GPU that can really max out PCIe 4.0, your current setup will likely feel outdated anyway. If you're not transferring huge files all the time, you'll probably not notice any difference in loading times.
If you're thinking long-term, there might be some benefits. The future GPUs could really take advantage of PCIe 5.0, but right now, the gains are slight. For a couple of percent increase in performance, it might not be worth the extra cost unless you want to keep everything on the cutting edge.
True, that way if your GPU gets split to x8 lanes for other components, it'll still perform well. Even if you're not fully using it now, it can keep your options open!