Since RTX 30 & 40 series Graphics Cards are the latest release, those come with PCIe 4.0 support.
Furthermore, we already have PCIe 5.0 on newer chipset motherboards in the mainstream market.
That brings a question: Is PCIe 3.0 no longer supporting new RTX 30 and 40 series graphics cards?
Still, there should be some flaws and drawbacks that Ill share with my experience.
Can a PCIe 3.0 Slot Run RTX 30 & 40 Series GPUs?
My RTX 4090 didnt come up with any problems with the older Z390 chipset motherboard with PCIe 3.0 slot.
Although I expected thatmy PC might not start after installing the new graphics card, it didnt blink once.
In fact, the high-end RTX 4090 performs pretty smoothly and fast in my day-to-day task.
Of course, that friend was flexing with the latest chipset mobo with native PCIe 4.0 support.
But things didnt go according to his plan.
The results are evaluated in the further sections below.
Does RTX 30 & 40 Cause Performance Drop on PCIe 3.0 lane?
But the difference between the performance of 3.0 & 4.0 is not as much as people would expect.
Even I was shocked by the result.
Let me share a glimpse of the configuration of both rigs.
My PC has an Intel CoreTM i7-9700KF (Coffee Lake) with a Z390 chipset motherboard.
The system has 16 Gigs of DDR 4 RAM of CL16 & NVMe storage.
We ran several synthetic benchmarks simultaneously to determine the performance difference between our PCs with the same Graphics Card.
As you’re free to see in the chart, Both PCs are performing pretty much similarly.
The lacking is roughly less than 5%.
The latest one may have improvements because of the latest chipset and processor.
Then Again, we tested the 3D performance of both PC with Blender.
We rendered the Gooseberry & BMW to check how long those take to complete.
Additionally, the BMW render only required 19 sec on both PCs.
You might be surprised how a spec sheet shows PCIe performance over the generation.
Take a quick look at the data below I took from Wikipedia.
The table shows that every version upgrade of PCI express brought twice the wider bandwidth and throughput rate.
But in real-life experience, it reveals a different story.
So, we decided to jump on the gaming section to redetermine the PCIe 3.0 and PCIe 4,0 performance.
Does PCIe 3.0 Affect Gaming FPS Compare to PCIe 4.0?
Alongside the synthetic benchmark result, the game FPS is a better option for evaluating PC performance.
From our perspective, gaming was the key point where the competition brought satisfaction.
So weve played some Triple-A games to judge the real-life use case because our main concern was gaming.
And the other rig has Z690 with the latest Raptor Lake i7 12700KF processor.
Both have 16 Gigs of RAM, and an identical RTX 4090 GPU is used.
What do you think of the result?
Very little improvement, according to the spec sheet throughput from Wikipedia.
He was banging his head on the wall after seeing this.
But the story took a turn when we tested our favorite tactical shooting game CS-GO.
The result has stabbed me while I had a boastful mind with the previous results.
Well, thats how PCIe 4.0 should drop nukes into the users mind.
It literally outperforms PCIe 3.0 with the CS-GO test.
Cheers to the optimization of CS-GO.
Plus, the true potential of PCIe isnt only for graphics.
Data transfer rate via M.2 port withthe fastest PCIe SSDsand other PCIe-connected components is directly responsible for performance extension.
In fact, nearly the whole motherboard intercommunicates through the PCIe.
As a result, PCIe 3.0 isnt trash yet.
FAQs
Is PCIe 5.0 available?
Yes, PCIe 5.0 is already available with the latest chipset-based motherboards.
But those are pretty expensive.
Do I need PCIe 5 for GPU?
No, PCIe 5 is not mandatory for the graphics cards yet.
Is NVMe better than SSD?
Undoubtedly, NVMe uses the fastest PCIe lane, which offers a huge bandwidth.
Rather, the SATA SSDs are only capable of transferring around 500mbps of bandwidth.
How many PCIe lanes does an SSD use?
An NVMe SSD can use four lanes of PCIe through the M.2 port of the motherboard.
How many PCIe lanes does a GPU use?
Final Words
Since PCIe 3.0, its been revolutionized for a long time.
PCIe 4.0 is also developing, though 5.0 is already on board.
Its able to run an absolute beast like RTX 4090, let alone the usual ones.
