can't get pcie to go x16

has it occurred to you that 8x is all it needs?

>>57957337
What board and what slot are you running it on? If it is not the slot closest to the cpu, then it will run at x8 max like it is showing there.

>>57957464
first slot
>>57957460
i'm not getting a definitive answer on that, but considering the card is a pcie 3.0 x16 and it's currently going at pcie 2.0 x8, i'm leaning towards that's no the case

Do you have anything else using PCI lanes plugged in? Your CPU only supports 16 total.

>>57957512
A single 7870 isn't going to come anywhere close to maxing a PCIe 3.0 x16 slot. Not even a Titan XP at 4K will saturate that many lanes alone. Your card is most likely completely fine at the sort of speed it's getting, at most you're losing a few %. Your 2500k is also a PCIe 2.0 CPU, you're not going to get 3.0 out of it no matter what. You could also try physically reseating your card and check your mobo's manual to make sure the slot is actually wired up to 16 lanes in the configuration you're using, as opposed to only 8 while being physically larger on the board. If you have other cards some PCIe lanes could be going to different slots as well.

>>57957512
With that card a pcie 2.0 8x slot is plenty enough bandwidth. 2500k can't even support pcie 3.0

i know i wont get pcie 3.0, im concerned that it's not going x16 on pcie 2.0

>>57957567
i have a pci for ethernet (cuz integrated one stopped working)
and i have a sound card on the pce x1 slot
but i'm reading that the mobo only downgrades to x8 if i sli/crossfire it

>>57957677
CPU controls pcie lanes. if cpu does not have enough lanes for a 16x slot knocks it down to 8x this would be true if something is in the other 16x slot

>>57957677
It most likely wouldn't downgrade due to the sound card in a x1 slot, but if your NIC is plugged into the slot you'd use for the 2nd card in SLI/CF it's very likely that your lanes are split x8/x8 even if the NIC isn't an actual x8 or x16 card. It's generally impossible to split those lanes into x15/x1 or some shit like that.

>>57957677
certain motherboards automatically downgrade the PCIe x16 slot to x8 if another slot is occupied, or in some cases more than 1 other slot.

So even if you're using 2 x1 devices, your motherboard might be setting aside half the x16 lanes anyway because it detects another PCI device, despite the fact the device doesn't need the extra lanes.

File: switch-card.jpg (109KB, 600x377px) Image search: [Google]

109KB, 600x377px

>>57957464
This is wrong my board has the bottom pcie slot run at x16 while the top only does x8 or both at x8 for dual GPU

OP should RTFM

sounds like the consensus is the other slot is in use
(the ethernet is on a regular pci slot)
it makes the most sense, so i'll just stick with that

so let's say that i upgrade to a 480 or a 1060, how much performance am i losing if it's running at pcie 2 x8

>>57957802
i read about those, my mobo certainly does not mention this or come with that dummy stick