RTX 50x0 Founders edition PCIE gen. 5 signal quality issues?

[BoggledBeagle]

I noticed that Roman had problems with his FE card, he needed to drop the PCIE speed to gen 4 to get the card to work properly:

These cards have one more connector and a ribbon cable in the signal path compared to standard cards, which may impact the signal quality.

I am not an expert in this field, have no deep electronics knowledge nor measuring equipment and will not own these cards, so I can offer no input about this on my own, but other consumers will start getting these cards today, and for sure they will be able to provide their experience.

 

[DarkDreams]

Not like it really matters in any way:

 

[Ruru]

If even PCIe 4.0 needs better riser cables, that modular solution of those cards having the PCIe connector via a ribbon cable sounds more than a suspect to me.

 

[BoggledBeagle]

Performance loss is one issue - it may not matter much, but the crashes and not booting is another problem, which may cause some users not only stress, but some may not be able to troubleshoot and solve it and will simply return or RMA the card.

 

[Ruru]

Performance loss is one issue - it may not matter much, but the crashes and not booting is another problem, which may cause some users not only stress, but some may not be able to troubleshoot and solve it and will simply return or RMA the card.

1% performance loss is practically something in margin of error. You wouldn't even notice that without having an OSD on in games.

 

[piloponth]

If even PCIe 4.0 needs better riser cables, that modular solution of those cards having the PCIe connector via a ribbon cable sounds more than a suspect to me.

There is no ribbon cable involved with PCIe connector. It connect directly from PCB board via another connector.

 

[Ruru]

There is no ribbon cable involved with PCIe connector. It connect directly from PCB board via another connector.View attachment 382547

Ok, I stand corrected then.

 

[evernessince]

There is no ribbon cable involved with PCIe connector. It connect directly from PCB board via another connector.View attachment 382547

It doesn't really matter, the concern remains the same. An additional connector the signal has to transfer over just adds another potential point of failure and signal loss.

PCIe 5.0 signals are extremely finicky.

I commend the design that went into this card but I doubt it's longevity.

 

[BoggledBeagle]

It is becoming a mainstream story:

Reviewer reports RTX 5080 FE instability — PCIe 5.0 signal integrity likely the culprit

The issue is suspected to stem from the multi-PCB design of the FE cards.

www.tomshardware.com

 

[soupinator]

The weird thing here is that this problem has only been reported on the 5080 FE, not the 5090 FE - why? The two PCBs are quite different but the PCI-E boards appear to be identical. The only thing that seems odd to me is that the connector for the display outputs on the 5080 is up in the middle of the board, so I wonder if that's causing some electrical interference due to passing over the PCI-E traces on the main PCB.

I have a 5080 FE on the way and a PCI-E 5.0 motherboard so I'll report back if I have any issues with it.

 

[evernessince]

The weird thing here is that this problem has only been reported on the 5080 FE, not the 5090 FE - why? The two PCBs are quite different but the PCI-E boards appear to be identical. The only thing that seems odd to me is that the connector for the display outputs on the 5080 is up in the middle of the board, so I wonder if that's causing some electrical interference due to passing over the PCI-E traces on the main PCB.

I have a 5080 FE on the way and a PCI-E 5.0 motherboard so I'll report back if I have any issues with it.

Could be the length of the traces or number of PCB layers are different. Could also just be we don't have a large enough sample size yet. The issue might happen on both at equal rates. Hard to tell right now.