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    AW15 R1 Gtx 980m bus interface only at PCIE x8(3.0)?

    Discussion in '2015+ Alienware 13 / 15 / 17' started by Temeraire, Nov 20, 2015.

  1. Temeraire

    Temeraire Newbie

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    gpuz pcie x8.JPG Hi guys, I just noticed via GPU-z that my 980m is only using PCIE x8(3.0) despite the fact that it's supposed to support PCIE x16? Here's a screenshot while I was running the Render Test. Is it running as expected, or can anyone shed some light on this for me? As a reference, I'm using Prema's vbios and currently trying out driver 359.00. Many thanks in advance :) (AW15 R1, gtx980m, i7-4720, FHD panel)
     
    Temeraire, Nov 20, 2015
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  2. javers

    javers Notebook Guru

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    Hi Temeraire,

    Just stumbled across this, and I have the same problem with my AW17 R3 w/ 980m (both on stock and Prema vbios). Do you have an M.2 ssd by any chance? I've not fully proved the theory yet, but I think if you have an ssd in either of the M.2 slots then it robs 8x pcie lanes from the GPU. Whether or not this actually makes a difference to performance I've yet to determine but I score around 9.5k for graphics in Firestrike v1.1 (stock gpu clock speeds).

    Jon
     
    javers, Nov 25, 2016
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  3. rinneh

    rinneh Notebook Prophet

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    Its normal and doesnt cause extra bandwidth loss for these tier of gpus. there arent just enough lanes available on the haswell and skylake architecture.
     
    rinneh, Nov 25, 2016
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  4. javers

    javers Notebook Guru

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    Thanks Rinneh, good to know its not a problem.

    Jon
     
    javers, Nov 25, 2016
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