8 lane GPU is viable for a long time (benchmarks on PCIe 8x versus 16x shows a 5% perf difference), but it did not change the physical layout the motherboard ma

8 lane GPU is viable for a long time (benchmarks on PCIe 8x versus 16x shows a 5% perf difference), but it did not change the physical layout the motherboard manufacturers use; you cannot use the existing lanes any way you want, on some motherboards you cannot even split it the way you want between physical connectors and video card manufacturers continue to push 16x everywhere.