MSI GTX 570 - Why does it say PCIe x8 (No SLI)

[NMD]

Hello, started off with one question and expanded into more, hehe... any help is greatly appreciated!!

I'm 99.9% sure the slot I have it in is x16 but it says x8 in the nVidia control panel(see img below). Is this wrong or am I just being a noob?

Also, a bit of a noob question... The driver version I have is 275.33 but on the MSI website they list driver 266.77

Should I downgrade to that driver?

While I'm asking noob questions... This card is the uber cooled Power Edition/OC version and his has a stock factory OC... The card runs really cool and the fans never go above the lowest setting. Could/Should I overclock it more? I got my 2600k running at 5ghz so why not turbo charge my gfx card right?

ALSO while I'm on that thought, the website talks about 2 fan profiles, Performance/Silent ... I don't see anything about this on the card or in the MSI software. The Afterburner program lets you make custom profiles on a graph but I cant find anything about the "Dual fan speed profiles–Performance/Silent."

Incase you can't see the 3 times I linked it in the text above, HERE is my GFX card.

 

[Maziar]

What motherboard do you have ?
And no,you shouldn't downgrade the driver.And always install the latest version from Nvidia's site(not from the manufacture's site since they don't update the drivers as fast as Nvidia does)
OC'ng your GPU won't give you a huge boost in performance(unless you raise the clocks too much which may cause overheating/instability problems)

 

[NMD]

What motherboard do you have ?
And no,you shouldn't downgrade the driver.And always install the latest version from Nvidia's site(not from the manufacture's site since they don't update the drivers as fast as Nvidia does)
OC'ng your GPU won't give you a huge boost in performance(unless you raise the clocks too much which may cause overheating/instability problems)

Hi, thanks for the reply. Sorry, I thought I added my rig stuff too my sig but its not showing up. Anyway, I have an Asus P8P67 Deluxe. I'm using the 2nd PCIe x16 slot, nothing else in the other 2.

 

[Maziar]

Download GPU-Z and see what it reports.( PCI-E speed)
Also why aren't you using your card on the first PCI-E slot ? Because on some boards,when you install the card on the 2nd slot rather than 1st,it runs at x8 speed

 

[NMD]

Download GPU-Z and see what it reports.( PCI-E speed)
Also why aren't you using your card on the first PCI-E slot ? Because on some boards,when you install the card on the 2nd slot rather than 1st,it runs at x8 speed

Yea, so I'm stupid, while posting on the MSi forum I was looking at the manual again and sure enough it says (at x8 mode) next to the 2nd slot.

I put it in the 2nd slot instead of the 1st for better airflow. In the first slot it blocks my side fan from cooling the heatsink for what used to be called the southbridge . Also I didn't want the back of the 570 card right up against the x-fi.

I really don't wanna put it in the first slot... how much is it costing me to run it at x8?

 

[Maziar]

I don't think anything bad happens if you put it on the first slot but if you insist on using it on the 2nd one,then overall the performance difference is notable(on high resolutions)

 

[NMD]

I don't think anything bad happens if you put it on the first slot but if you insist on using it on the 2nd one,then overall the performance difference is notable(on high resolutions)

What is a high resolution? I'll be playing games at 1920x1080 in 2d and 3d.

 

[Maziar]

That's considered as a high resolution (The difference is like 5-15% between x8 and x16)

 

[NMD]

ooo... o well, I guess I'll switch it then... the case just looks so nice where it is now.