Running PCIe 3.0 Graphics Card on PCIe 2.0?

Lady Fitzgerald said:

VistaKing said:

Hi Lady see if this link could help How to enable PCI-E 3.0 in Windows 7

Your board does support PCI X16 3.0 . Try the black or blue slots

I know the board does. It's the CPU (i7-3930K Sandy Bridge E; Ivy Bridge isn't available for the X79s yet, if ever) that's supposed to not support it. Will the directions in your link still work with a Sandy Bridge E?

The GPU card is destined for the top (blue) slot. I don't have the parts yet; I just ordered them today when I noticed today that NewEgg ran out of the RAM sticks I wanted (the only ones on ASUS' approved list) and Amazon had only two left. The board, cooler, RAM, CPU, and GPU will be trickling in next week. I caught the TIM on sale (free if I don't have any trouble with the rebate) which should be delivered tomorrow and it was delivered and already have the SSD, two data storage HDDs (will buy more, up to six total, as I need them) and extra HDDs for backups, cables, case (already prepped except for one Molex cconnector that needs pins which I will pick up tomorrow), PSU, and an el cheapo DVD drive I picked up for a dummy to use for making the cables (I had three dead 3.5" HDDs and a somewhat dead 2.5" HDD I also used for making up cables) and will replace with a BD drive later. You can see the case here starting at post #1029.

Maybe I wasn't clear. The I7-3930k provides PCI-E 3 on a P9X79 Pro, even though Intel doesn't officially support it. There's nothing that you need to do to turn it on, other than leave the BIOS settings at their default Gen3 values. I guess that Intel built-in the capability, but decided not to certify it.

(I need to use an nVidia utility to turn on PCI-E 3 in their drivers for a GTX 680. Nothing like that is needed with a AMD Radeon 7970; I presume that a 7850 would be the same.)

You make your own custom cables? Neat. Most of the "cable management" enthusiasts I've seen don't go in for that.

bobkn said:

...Maybe I wasn't clear. The I7-3930k provides PCI-E 3 on a P9X79 Pro, even though Intel doesn't officially support it. There's nothing that you need to do to turn it on, other than leave the BIOS settings at their default Gen3 values. I guess that Intel built-in the capability, but decided not to certify it...

OK. Not doing something is something I can do (wait a minute; what did I just say?).

bobkn said:

...You make your own custom cables? Neat. Most of the "cable management" enthusiasts I've seen don't go in for that.

Mayhap I tend to be anal?

All seriousness aside, I didn't have much choice with the case I chose. The stock PSU cables were too long or too short, had too many or not enough connectors, ran in the wrong direction (in the case of the the SATA power cables) and/or the wires weren't heavy enough (when dealing with 5v and 12v, even a small voltage drop can be a problem). The hot swap bays each had to be on their own PSU cables to avoid having other drives drop out when drives were inserted. Trying to use the stock cables would have been a nightmare that would have resulted in still getting a space eating, airflow restricting rat's nest no self respecting rat would deign to live in. Hence, custom cables.

VistaKing said:

Cable management enthusiasts use para cord 550 for recabling their power supply cables and others ...

Are you thinking of lacing instead of sleeving?

Lacing:




Sleeving:

VistaKing said:

...Takes a long time to do .

Yeah, I noticed that. Modular PSUs simplify the task a bit.