PCI Express 3.0 vs. 2.0: Is There a Gaming Performance Gain?
How We Tested
Contents
During our benchmarking sessions, we used the configuration listed below. Between our benchmarking sessions, the only differences were the video card PCI Express configuration.
Hardware Configuration
- CPU: Core i7-5775C
- Motherboard: ASRock Z97 Extreme4
- CPU Cooler: Intel
- Memory: 16 GiB DDR3-2133, four G.Skill Ripjaws F3-17000CL9Q-16GBZH 4 GiB memory modules configured at 1,600 MHz
- Boot drive: Kingston HyperX Savage 480 GB
- Video Card: GeForce GTX 980 Ti
- Video Monitor: Philips 236VL
- Power Supply: Corsair CX750
Operating System Configuration
- Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
- NTFS
- Video resolution: 1920 x 1080 60 Hz
Driver Versions
- NVIDIA driver version: 361.43
Software Used
Error Margin
We adopted a 3% error margin. Thus, differences below 3% cannot be considered relevant. In other words, products with a performance difference below 3% should be considered as having similar performance.