H110 chipset question

[tripmann]

Hi all,

I have just purchased a Mini-ITX board with a H110 chipset for a gaming PC I'm building. After ordering I noticed that the specs for the H110 chipset are as follows (far right column)...

Chipset PCI-e Lanes x6 2.0
PCI-e 3.0 Config 1 x16

Can anybody tell me if having a PCI-e 2.0 x6 speed on my chipset will negatively affect the speed of a graphics card I will be plugging into the PCIe 16x slot on the motherboard? Or are they totally separate? I will be using a GTX 970 card.

Thanks in advance

T

 

[VirtualLarry]

The primary PCI-E x16 slot, used for graphics cards, has its PCI-E lanes fed directly from the CPU. As far as I know, they should be PCI-E 3.0.

The other PCI-E slots on the mobo, the x1 slots, x4 slots, or secondary x16 slots that are x4 electrically, are fed from the PCH (chipset) PCI-E fanout lanes. Those may be PCI-E 2.0 on the lower chipsets. That's generally not much of an issue, because things like PCI-E x1 sound cards, USB3.0 cards, Gigabit network cards, Wifi cards, are all generally just PCI-E 2.0 themselves, and not 3.0 yet. So it's not a big deal.

 

[tripmann]

@ VirtualLarry:

Thanks for clearing that up! I shouldn't be second guessing myself like that...

I went with the cheaper chipset so I could put the savings towards a better graphics card. Glad I didn't mess up.

Cheers

T