News

The GTX 680 limited to PCI-E 2.0 on X79 until the next driver update

Those who were hoping to jump on Kepler with their brand new Sandy Bridge-E systems to get the best of the best will have to wait, as the GeForce GTX 680 graphics card has been limited for the time being to PCI-Express 2.0 speeds on the X79 chipset.

This news was broken in the fine print of the specification page where you can read:

GeForce GTX 680 supports PCI Express 3.0. The Intel X79/SNB-E PCI Express 2.0 platform is only currently supported up to 5GT/s (PCIE 2.0) bus speeds even though some motherboard manufacturers have enabled higher 8GT/s speeds.

This limitation is only applied with the launch driver, pre-launch drivers didn’t limit this, however Nvidia has installed this limitation due to the X79 system natively being Gen2 platform. However, as you may know, some manufacturers have already installed Gen3 on some of their motherboards, yet this won’t change anything if the chipset is still X79.

However, Nvidia was quick in responding to the news that popped up on various parts of the internet stating that the GTX 680 does fully support PCI Express 3.0 and has been validated as such, however due to the various differences between motherboards and chipset, Nvidia is working on validating the faster speeds on the Sandy Bridge-E platform.

As for the upcoming Ivy Bridge platform, being native Gen3 chipset, even with the launch drivers, the GTX 680 will run at full speeds.

In comparison, even though proving to be slightly slower on some benchmarks, AMD’s Southern Islands GPUs have supported PCI Express 3.0 since the day of release.

For those waiting on unlocking the full bandwidth, you’ll have to wait for the next driver update removing the limitation.

Source: LegitReviews; TechPowerUp

Andy Ruffell

Disqus Comments Loading...

Recent Posts

Plaion Launches Retro ZX Spectrum Computer

Plaion, a leading video game publisher, and Retro Games Ltd., a specialist in reimagined classic…

1 day ago

NVIDIA Warns of GeForce RTX 40 Graphics Card Shortages in November and December

During the latest earnings call, NVIDIA CFO Colette Kress warned of a potential GPU supply…

1 day ago

GeForce RTX 5090, RTX 5080, RTX 5070 Ti, and RTX 5070 Reportedly Coming in Q1 2025

Chinese sources say the GeForce RTX 5090, RTX 5080, RTX 5070 Ti, and RTX 5070…

1 day ago

GTA 6 Already Winning Awards Before Its Launch

GTA 6 doesn’t have an official release date yet, but it has already earned a…

2 days ago

DJI Osmo Mobile 6, 3-Axis Phone Gimbal

Stay on Point with ActiveTrack 6.0 - With upgraded tracking tech, OM 6 sticks to…

2 days ago

Drayton Wiser Smart Radiator Thermostat TRV

Pack includes three Wiser Radiator Thermostats. These smart radiator thermostats are only designed to work…

2 days ago