Top PCI-E Slot vs. Bottom PCI-E Slot

[JonMooring]

My motherboard (DFI NF4 Ultra-D) didn't come with a chipset heatsink or fan, so I bought a Thermalright NB-1 off of NewEgg. This cooler supposedly interferes with my top PCI-E slot, so I'm wondering: does using the bottom PCI-E slot affect performance?

 

[McArra]

I don't think it affects performance, and if it does it would be soooooooooooooo small or smaller

 

[Topweasel]

Yes and no.

To use the Bottom slot you have to enable that slot for video, this means splitting the first slot to 8x and 8x for the upper and lower slot. So in theory your taking a slot you could be running at 16x and are now using a slot you only run at 8x. Right now this should have no impact on performance but it is something to keep in mind.

 

[McArra]

Yep, 8x is fast enough not to be a bottleneck.

 

[TGS]

Anyone actually know how much bandwidth the video cards are chewing up on agp and pcie busses?

 

[McArra]

Not enough to bottleneck AGP 8X for sure , no idea the exact numbers but around the bandwich of AGP 4x is my guess.