How to get Nvidia 650i sli motherboard to run a single card at 16x

[Prophet_05]

Hi,
I currently have a single msi GTX 560ti card running on my nvidia 650i sli motherboard. The bus speed is only at 8x, I am not sure how to switch it from 8x to 16x. Previously the motherboard ran two 8800GTs in SLI mode (causing the bus speed to run at 8x only).

Just wondering if anyone knows who to switch it from 8x for two PCIe slots to 16x for a single PCIe slot.

 

[Maziar]

Hello and welcome to the forums
A single card runs at x16 speeds on your board
http://www.nvidia.com/page/nforce_600i_tech_specs.html
Only when you use 2 cards,the speed is reduced to dual x8

 

[Prophet_05]

Yes i have looked at this and thought it would run at 16x but is says in the nvidia control panel that the pcie bus speed is only running at 8x. It may just be that the manufacturer of my board (Dell) has disabled the 16x feature and left the settings at 8x for each slot as default.

 

[Maziar]

Download GPU-Z and check what it reports

 

[delluser1]

Yes i have looked at this and thought it would run at 16x but is says in the nvidia control panel that the pcie bus speed is only running at 8x. It may just be that the manufacturer of my board (Dell) has disabled the 16x feature and left the settings at 8x for each slot as default.

Dell didn't disable anything, they simply provided a lower end board that only runs at 8x electrically, they didn't make them they bought them, you could have bought a similar board from Newegg at the time or , having been able to read the specs, opted for a full 650i .
Tests have been done, a long time ago, and there was minimal performance loss between 16x and 8x and that was only with the most powerful cards.
Really isn't a problem.

 

[Prophet_05]

Alright thanks for the help, looks like dell just decided to provide a different board from the original specs.
And GPU_Z reports bus speed at 8x, 16x max.

 

[Prophet_05]

Best answer selected by Prophet_05.