Will RTX 3080 be worth it with PCI-E 3.0?

[More Sly]

I'm considering upgrade options and leaning towards an RTX 3070. It seems to me that will get me at least to the performance of a 2080 Ti before PCI-E 3.0 can limit its performance but I'm wondering: will the 3080 outperform the 3070 even with PCI 3? Or do you think PCI 3 will be the hard limiting factor in the performance of these cards?

 

[sepheronx]

Yeah, it will be fine. It was Nvidia after all that showcased the release info of these using an Intel system which there isn't a PCIE-4.0 for it yet.

 

[birdie]

Here's a nice TPU review of the RTX 2080 Ti running at different PCI-E bandwidths and versions:

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti PCI-Express Scaling

It takes a lot of bandwidth to support the fastest graphics card, especially one that can play anything at 4K 60 Hz, with an eye on 120 Hz. The GeForce RTX 2080 Ti could be the most bandwidth-heavy non-storage PCIe device ever built. PCI-Express gen 3.0 is facing its design limits.

www.techpowerup.com

It looks like you won't be constrained by the PCI-E 3.0 interface much. Also, NVIDIA itself has showed performance improvements while using desktop Intel CPUs which don't even support PCI-E 4.0.

 

[More Sly]

Here's a nice TPU review of the RTX 2080 Ti running at different PCI-E bandwidths and versions:

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti PCI-Express Scaling

It takes a lot of bandwidth to support the fastest graphics card, especially one that can play anything at 4K 60 Hz, with an eye on 120 Hz. The GeForce RTX 2080 Ti could be the most bandwidth-heavy non-storage PCIe device ever built. PCI-Express gen 3.0 is facing its design limits.

www.techpowerup.com

It looks like you won't be constrained by the PCI-E 3.0 interface much. Also, NVIDIA itself has showed performance improvements while using desktop Intel CPUs which don't even support PCI-E 4.0.

This is great, thanks! Do you mean it won't be constraining even the 3080 or just to get up to the performance of a 2080 Ti?

Yeah, it will be fine. It was Nvidia after all that showcased the release info of these using an Intel system which there isn't a PCIE-4.0 for it yet.

That's interesting! So the showcase with 8K on the 3080 was with PCIE 3?

 

[kayjay010101]

That's interesting! So the showcase with 8K on the 3080 was with PCIE 3?

Yes, they only used an Intel system for everything, and no Intel system supports PCIe 4.0.

 

[ppn]

3080 offers 60% stronger performance, 3070 really is 3060 with the price of 70, so you definitely don't want that unless $200 is a problem and you can't wait for 3070 to drop where it should be at $350. PCIe has nothing to do with it whether you get those 60%. When the details are too big to fit in the 8/10GB local buffer textures start to transfer over the PCIE, usually traffic is 5%, at 60FPS, and 7% at 100 lets say when that reaches 20% or above of the PCIE bandwidth you will know it when see it. that is all.

 

[Mussels]

1. It will be fine

2. Our site owner W1zzard does testing every generation and has it ready on launch day or soon after for major GPU releases, so you'll definitely see PCIE 4.0/3.0/2.0/1.1 tested at 16x/8x/4x because its just one of the ways he's tortures himself.

I full expect based on the 2080ti's results to see a card that finally needs 16x 3.0 for full performance (10% or more loss at 3.0 8x) but full performance at 3.0 x16

 

[More Sly]

I full expect based on the 2080ti's results to see a card that finally needs 16x 3.0 for full performance (10% or more loss at 3.0 8x) but full performance at 3.0 x16

Full performance at 3.0 x16 would be awesome for a lot of people, I'm sure! (definitely for me)

 

[rbgc]

Answer from u/NV_Tim, Community Manager from NVIDIA GeForce Global Community Team

PCIE Gen4 and NVIDIA RTX 30-Series

Will customers find a performance degradation on PCIE 3.0?

System performance is impacted by many factors and the impact varies between applications. The impact is typically less than a few percent going from a x16 PCIE 4.0 to x16 PCIE 3.0. CPU selection often has a larger impact on performance.We look forward to new platforms that can fully take advantage of Gen4 capabilities for potential performance increases.

 

[More Sly]

Answer from u/NV_Tim, Community Manager from NVIDIA GeForce Global Community Team

PCIE Gen4 and NVIDIA RTX 30-Series

Will customers find a performance degradation on PCIE 3.0?

System performance is impacted by many factors and the impact varies between applications. The impact is typically less than a few percent going from a x16 PCIE 4.0 to x16 PCIE 3.0. CPU selection often has a larger impact on performance.We look forward to new platforms that can fully take advantage of Gen4 capabilities for potential performance increases.

Interesting! I started another thread wondering about the limits of my i5-8600k and the upgrade limit for it. Right now I think there's still value from a 2080 Ti, but think that might be the ceiling.

Where's the upgrade limit with an i5-8600K?

Like most of us, presumably, I've been spurred into considering my next GPU upgrade by NVIDIA's recent 3000 series announcement. But looking into other hardware concerns, I'm wondering about the limits of my processor and if concerns about it are even warranted at this point. Namely - with an...

www.techpowerup.com

 

[BoboOOZ]

If you play high refresh 1080p, you will definitely see some bottlenecking. If you play 4k with RT on, you won't be able to notice it, most likely.

 

[Assimilator]

There is no way to answer this question until the cards are reviewed. We can speculate all we want but that's all it will be, speculation.

If you play high refresh 1080p, you will definitely see some bottlenecking.

How do you know this, considering the cards haven't been released and benchmarked yet?

 

[BoboOOZ]

There is no way to answer this question until the cards are reviewed. We can speculate all we want but that's all it will be, speculation.



How do you know this, considering the cards haven't been released and benchmarked yet?

Extrapolating from the scaling results of the 3080Ti?

 

[xman2007]

Extrapolating from the scaling results of the 2080Ti?

FTFY

 

[Assimilator]

Extrapolating from the scaling results of the 3080Ti?

Except that you presented said extrapolation as fact.

 

[BoboOOZ]

Except that you presented said extrapolation as fact.

Let me be clear then.
There's a 0.001% chance that I'm wrong and the trend that I have noticed from scaling tests of the 1080Ti and of the 2080Ti with different PCI bandwidths does not apply to the 3080, who will have about 35% better performance than the 2080 TI. This chance is so small and purely theoretical, that I would be willing to bet money that I am right.
In this type of situation, I tend to present my calculations as fact, just for brevity.

 

[Assimilator]

I tend to present my calculations as fact, just for brevity.

I appreciate that, and would love to do the same - unfortunately, far too many people nowadays are incapable of thinking further than something they read on the Internet. Then they complain when what they read is wrong, or doesn't apply to them, or they manage to apply it in the completely wrong situation. (See my signature for a good example.) And then they blame the person who wrote the thing they read, because common sense isn't very common any more and blaming others for your own failures is what today's leaders teach.

Hence, I prefer to hedge my words with disclaimers as far as possible. It probably won't stop people from using them wrongly, but at least when they get upset, I can point to what I wrote and say "you didn't read properly, that's your problem" and they have no recourse but to STFU.

 

[BoboOOZ]

I appreciate that, and would love to do the same - unfortunately, far too many people nowadays are incapable of thinking further than something they read on the Internet. Then they complain when what they read is wrong, or doesn't apply to them, or they manage to apply it in the completely wrong situation. (See my signature for a good example.) And then they blame the person who wrote the thing they read, because common sense isn't very common any more and blaming others for your own failures is what today's leaders teach.

Hence, I prefer to hedge my words with disclaimers as far as possible. It probably won't stop people from using them wrongly, but at least when they get upset, I can point to what I wrote and say "you didn't read properly, that's your problem" and they have no recourse but to STFU.

Cool, I understand where you're coming from, but my mindset is slightly different. Far too often, there are people who would argue indefinitely and not admit the obvious even when presented with sources/evidence, and my strategy is simply to ignore them when I encounter them, and to actually take the time to exchange ideas with people who do the same. Life is too short to waste time with trolls.
So, when I reasonably sure of what I am saying, I just say it, knowing that I, like any human, can be wrong at any given moment.

I have a scientific background and I know that, on an absolute level, scientists are wrong every day, but they progress by being less and less wrong in their endeavors. Most truths that we know are partial truths, but they still allow us to function well in practice.

And lastly, I am at work now, so I try to keep my posts reasonably short

 

[Calmmo]

Doubt it. There might be a small gain in benchmarks 3.0 vs 4.0 if Zen3 proves to be enough of an improvement.

 

[Finnedsgang]

I'm in a big big trouble. I recently completed a very nice mini ITX build, with an x570Aorus motherboard, ryzen 3900x and a pcexpress super fast nvme 7000mbit/s, but using an itx from In Win with a 600w PSU included, i doubt i can accomodate safely a 3080 that, from what i understand, needs at least a 750w PSU.
So i was thinking to switch the 3080 (i preordered a Gigabyte GamingOC) to another machine with an Intel 7820x and X299 motherboard. Do you think this new cards will benefit from the more lanes available on the platform or it's just irrelevant?

I know maybe my best choice is to change the PSU with a bigger one...

 

[More Sly]

I'm in a big big trouble. I recently completed a very nice mini ITX build, with an x570Aorus motherboard, ryzen 3900x and a pcexpress super fast nvme 7000mbit/s, but using an itx from In Win with a 600w PSU included, i doubt i can accomodate safely a 3080 that, from what i understand, needs at least a 750w PSU.
So i was thinking to switch the 3080 (i preordered a Gigabyte GamingOC) to another machine with an Intel 7820x and X299 motherboard. Do you think this new cards will benefit from the more lanes available on the platform or it's just irrelevant?

I know maybe my best choice is to change the PSU with a bigger one...

The consensus here seems to be, aside from "wait for benchmarking" of course, that PCI-E 3.0 will only bottleneck marginally if at all.

I actually made another thread curious about people's predictions of CPU bottlenecking. That one is a bit more varied, but after a bit of looking into it I'm thinking even my budget 8600K will still make the 3070 (at least) worth. The main concern looked to be threads from people who know better than myself. So, if I were you, I'd say it's fine but definitely wait for bechmarks. If you're getting the card no matter what there isn't much risk, just plug it in and try it out!

Personally I'd go for the new PSU and put it on my main rig, though.

 

[Flow]

Obviously the 30 series is developed on pcie3.0. So while 4.0 would give even better results, albeit only marginally according to some leaks, it would be very strange if pcie 3.0 would bottleneck the 3000 cards from nvidia.
As for the rest, had a gtx1080 with a 2600k which, according to many test results would be bottlenecked, and the gtx1070 would be more suited.
Yet it did better in any scenario, in any game. So maybe not worth the extra money, but still better results. It now sits with the 9900k, awaiting to be replaced by the 3080 card.
So yeah, my games could run much faster at higher settings currently. But for the time being I play at mixed settings and enjoy it all the same.
Bottlenecking in the pc universe is overrated.
ps. some games still wont like higher settings in my current setup, they simply need a faster gpu.
ps2. playing on higher res reduces the stress on the cpu also.

 

[Mussels]

ps2. playing on higher res reduces the stress on the cpu also.

Thats a myth and common misunderstanding

 

[Assimilator]

Obviously the 30 series is developed on pcie3.0.

[citation needed]

 

[nguyen]

HUB tested PCIe bandwidth scaling just last month

Overall 2080 Ti can improve performance by 5-7% from Gen3 x8 to x16 only in 1080p and 1440p, but almost nothing in 4K

So here come the dilemma, the 10900K offer higher performance in some game while being held back by PCIe Gen3 while 3950X are slower but has PCIe Gen4. So either way the only thing you can trust for now is performance at 4K while waiting for next gen AMD and Intel offerings to better unleash 3080/3090 in 1080p/1440p gaming.

If you play at 1080p/1440p then it's best to wait for Ryzen 3rd gen, and also see how RX6000 series perform.