4 ms·

Eh... for the everyday use PCIe 3.0 x4 is aplenty. If you wanted to help the everday user then make these new PIO slots standard https://world.taobao.com/item/

by chx 9y ago

Eh... for the everyday use PCIe 3.0 x4 is aplenty. If you wanted to help the everday user then make these new PIO slots standard https://world.taobao.com/item/535467249119.htm?spm=a312a.7700714.0.0.T1USiR https://world.taobao.com/item/535467249119.htm?spm=a312a.770... and once you have the GPU parallel to the MB, make the coolers user replaceable so that you can put a tower cooler on your GPU. What lunacy is that we have 12-16 cm edge cubes containing like a kg of metal and two-three fans in a push-pull to cool ~150W CPUs but the 250W GPU cooling system struggles for air. x4 is enough in practically all cases just don't forget to feed 75W into it... Once that's done add a few more x4 slots. Even consumer CPUs have enough lanes for it, no need to waste x16 on the GPU. TB3 is x4, U.2 is x4, everything big and useful is x4 so more of that is helpful. The only thing that needs x8 is like HPC and 40Gbps+ Ethernet both of which are clearly server land.

colejohnson66 9y ago
4 3.0 lanes may be enough for a GPU, but if you're using a 3.0 capable GPU on a 2.0 system, you'll need 8 lanes. So my guess for why GPUs have 16 lane connectors is for backwards compatibility. What motherboard manufactures could do is use open ended x4 slots. But from what I've observed, people don't seem to know that you can put an x1 card into an x4 slot
- chx 9y ago
  Not really. 2.0 x4 is already enough. https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_1080_PCI_Express_Scaling/25.html https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_1080_... PCI Express 1.1 x4 is shouting distance within 3.0 x16. 2.0 x4 and 3.0 x16 has no noticeable difference. And the future is actually less bandwidth requirement: > Performance doesn't even drop with newer DirectX 12 and Vulkan games, including titles like "DOOM," which are known to utilize virtual texturing ("mega textures," an API feature analogous to Direct3D tiled-resources). If anything, mega textures has reduced the GPU's bandwidth load on the PCI-Express bus. So: 3.0 x4 will be plenty for the foreseeable future.

by chx 9y ago

colejohnson66 9y ago

4 3.0 lanes may be enough for a GPU, but if you're using a 3.0 capable GPU on a 2.0 system, you'll need 8 lanes. So my guess for why GPUs have 16 lane connectors is for backwards compatibility. What motherboard manufactures could do is use open ended x4 slots. But from what I've observed, people don't seem to know that you can put an x1 card into an x4 slot

chx 9y ago
Not really. 2.0 x4 is already enough. https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_1080_PCI_Express_Scaling/25.html https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_1080_... PCI Express 1.1 x4 is shouting distance within 3.0 x16. 2.0 x4 and 3.0 x16 has no noticeable difference. And the future is actually less bandwidth requirement: > Performance doesn't even drop with newer DirectX 12 and Vulkan games, including titles like "DOOM," which are known to utilize virtual texturing ("mega textures," an API feature analogous to Direct3D tiled-resources). If anything, mega textures has reduced the GPU's bandwidth load on the PCI-Express bus. So: 3.0 x4 will be plenty for the foreseeable future.