Dumb question probably but here goes. I was wondering if it matters which pci slot I put my gpu in. I know traditionally it should go in the uppermost slot, but for airflow reasons it would be better suited in the bottom slot in my case. I have the asus m5a99fx pro motherboard. Thanks!
Assuming all the slots are identical and run with the same bandwidth it shouldn't matter. However, I'd look at the manual for your motherboard. At least for my motherboard, there were two Pci-e 3.0 slots and one pci-e 2.0 slot. Ideally you'd want to place it in the highest bandwidth slot since it's most likely your most bandwidth intensive expansion card. That said, as far as I'm aware there aren't any graphics cards that are bottlenecked by a 2.0 card running at x16
If this is thd case, why isn't this sort of setup the norm? Most cases have little clearance between the gpu and drive bays when using the top pci
2.0 at x8 will work just as well too.
I thought there was a small (like 1% maybe) difference between x8 and x16 on 2.0. But that is so small it's hardly worth mentioning.
shouldn't really make a difference, just make sure to put it into a 16x slot, i know they're all physically 16x, but i don't think they're all electrically 16x, too lazy to check myself
Reasonable not to check yourself, still wonder why more people dont do this
yeah, it's not like i have that board and a manual for it sitting right next to me... oh wait
Its's a force of habit as early boards only had one PCI-X slot located at the top. Later boards had more slots but only the top slot ran at 16x speed the others were 8x, so you always placed the card in the top slot.
But now that's not the case, this may really improve airflow significantly, tekkies it's time, LET'S START A REVOLUTION!!!!!!!!!
The slots would look weird though, and a lot of cases have drive bays riveted to the bottom.
I SAID REVOLUTION!!!!
you will be fine