NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 Limited To PCI-Express 2.0 On X79 Platform

In what may be a disappointment for a few, NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 680 currently does not support PCI-Express 3.0 on Intel’s Sandybridge-E X79 platform. Instead, the graphics card will run at PCI-Express 2.0 speeds, which isn’t really a problem, in relation to performance. The only time PCI-Express 2.0 may limit performance is when multiple GPUs are used in SLI, even then the SB-E/X79 platform offers x16/x16/x8 arrangement, as such there should be no performance hit. We have confirmed with our own test sample that PCI-Express 3.0 worked without issue during our review of NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 680. Why NVIDIA would allow PCI-Express 3.0 for reviews, while limiting consumer drivers to PCI-Express 2.0 is currently unknown. In the end, this shouldn’t impact users performance to any serious degree. Let’s just hope NVIDIA can fix the limitation in future drivers.