Hey all! I just built my new PC earlier this week, and I noticed that my GPU is running at PCIe x8 instead of x16, which it's supposed to support. I'm unsure why this is happening.
Here are the specs:
- Motherboard: Gigabyte x870e Aorus Elite Ice
- CPU: 9950x3d
- GPU: RTX 5080
- RAM: 32 GB DDR5 6000MHz
- Storage:
- 2TB 990 Pro NVMe (boot drive)
- 2TB 990 Pro NVMe
- 1TB 990 Pro NVMe
- 8TB HDD
- 2TB HDD
- PSU: 1000W Lian Li Edge
2 Answers
Have you checked the motherboard specifications? According to the manual, if you populate the M2B_CPU or M2C_CPU connectors, the PCIEX16 slot will switch to x8 mode. Since you have three NVMe drives, at least one must be in those slots causing the x8 limitation.
I see. Does this x8 mode significantly affect gaming performance?
Have you tried checking the BIOS settings? Sometimes you can adjust PCIe settings there. Just double-check your motherboard manual—it should have some details on lane configurations too.
Exactly! That's the likely reason. If you have one NVMe in the M2C_CPU slot, it's definitely affecting the PCIe lanes.