The Most Powerful Graphics Card in the World: A Masochist's Guide to Gaming on PCIE Gen 1
As a self-proclaimed masochist, I decided to test the limits of my graphics card on the most powerful system available - the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090. My goal was to see just how far this beast could be pushed before it finally succumbed to its own greatness.
To achieve this, I set up a testing rig with the NZXT motherboard, which boasts four PCIe slots. In my quest for extreme performance, I decided to use each slot to push the 4090 to its limits. I started by plugging the graphics card into the first PCIe x16 slot at PCIe Gen 1 speeds.
At first, everything seemed fine. The system was able to handle the demands of the 4090, and we were getting frame rates in the hundreds of frames per second. However, as soon as I moved the mouse cursor around the screen, it became clear that something was amiss. The performance dropped dramatically, and we were only able to manage a paltry 20 frames per second.
Despite this, I decided to persevere and push the limits even further. I plugged the graphics card into the next PCIe x16 slot at PCIe Gen 1 speeds, hoping that it would somehow magically improve performance. However, the results were disappointing. The system struggled to handle the demands of the 4090, and we were only able to manage a mere 10 frames per second.
As I continued to experiment with different PCIe slots and speeds, I began to notice a strange phenomenon. Every time I felt like I was noticing input lag, it would disappear as soon as I took my eyes off the screen. It was as if my brain was playing a trick on me, making me think that the performance was actually improving.
Despite this peculiarity, I decided to continue with the experiment. I plugged the graphics card into the next PCIe x16 slot at PCIe Gen 1 speeds, hoping that it would somehow magically improve performance. However, the results were disappointing. The system struggled to handle the demands of the 4090, and we were only able to manage a mere 40 frames per second.
As I approached the limits of what was thought possible with this setup, I began to feel like I was gaming on two 300 ping systems simultaneously. It was as if my brain was being split in half, unable to decide which screen it should be looking at. The experience was disorienting and surreal, like trying to observe whether light is a particle or a wave.
Despite this strange phenomenon, I decided to continue with the experiment one last time. I plugged the graphics card into the final PCIe x16 slot at PCIe Gen 1 speeds, hoping that it would somehow magically improve performance. However, the results were as disappointing as ever. The system struggled to handle the demands of the 4090, and we were only able to manage a mere 120 frames per second.
In conclusion, my experiment has left me with more questions than answers. How can something so powerful be pushed to such absurdly low frame rates? Is it a limitation of the hardware or a fundamental flaw in human perception? Whatever the answer may be, I am convinced that we still have much to learn about the limits of what is possible with high-performance computing.
Half-Life 2, on the other hand, was a different story. Despite the strange phenomenon and disappointing frame rates, I was able to play Half-Life 2 at a smooth and enjoyable level. This has left me wondering if there may be some hidden benefits to using lower speeds, or if it's just a fluke.
In any case, my experiment has been a wild ride, full of unexpected twists and turns. While the results may not have been what I expected, they have certainly provided a unique perspective on the limits of high-performance computing. If you're looking for an adventure that will push your system to its limits, then strap yourself in and join me on this journey into the depths of PCIE Gen 1. But be warned: it's not for the faint of heart!
WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: entoday's video is a masochist guide on how to bring the most powerful graphics card in the world to its Knights using something as simple as a pcie slotnow the reason I'm doing this very useful guide is because when tearing down this ridiculous MSI system in a previous video I noticed something interesting let's have a lookthe 4090 is plugged into a pcie slot that's only wired for attacks now first off I'm not entirely sure why MSI would do that but to be fair it is pcie Gen 4 and despite there being a 4090 involved I don't think it's going to make a huge difference to the performance but we'll test that in today's video and don't worry even if it doesn't matter we'll find a way to make it matter later in the video foreign anyway on that note let's get a quick Baseline reading before we swap out the motherboard now I'm going to be running these tests at 4K Ultra settings and here with Battlefield 5 you can see this MSI system performs like a student on Adderall and frankly inappropriate amount of frame rate Happening Here performance frame rate power all of the things in Spain so with all that good stuff let's transplant all of our parts into a new motherboard and see what happensoh they also have the GPU screw down the front of the case I'm assuming that this is to help with like GPU sag and wobble and shipping and stuffoh it's a big blockonly the highest quality plastic used in the construction of this very expensive PC and here's a better look at the motherboard in this system which looks a bit like it was dug out of a discount bin in a Toys R Us but at least we don't only get atex pcie slots there's also a 4X one I mean MSI is a motherboard manufacturer you'd expect them to use something a bit less bare minimum looking than this but whatever let's tear it down further some snazzy looking Ramthat is a surprisingly arid thermal paste application under which we have our powerful 3900 KFnext I had to remove the CPU mounting bracket for the AIO that came with the system which led to a bit of a whoopsie ohthe glue holding this back plate on is like the most well made part of the system there we go there we go what glue do they use to hold this on and why is the whole PC not made out of it but my celebration was short-lived ah oh no I got a boo-boo motherboard wise I'm using this NZXT N7 z790 because it's the only z790 motherboard I have available and this way we've got the same chipset as the MSI boardthere is our borderline erotic EP in Ram niceand now that we have proof of our full endowment of pcie Lanes let's see if it's made a difference no it it hasn't has it which like I said at the beginning of the video is not really surprising it's a relatively well documented thing there's clearly just enough bandwidth to go around out of Interest I also clocked the ram to its rated speed which was a very small increase in frequency that also had no impact on the performance so with that out the way how do we go about kicking this system in the balls now the simplest way to reduce pcie bandwidth is by incrementally turning the pcie slot into an octogenarian so first things first we're gonna drop it to gen 3 which effectively halves the bandwidth which shouldn't make a difference because it's basically the same as having an atex Gen 4 slot but let's see what happens and just to be sure yes according to gpu-z we are getting 16x gen 3. wow some more margin of error results very surprising luckily there's still a lot more ass kicking left in this foot dropupping down to pcie Gen 2 that was introduced back in 2007 is the first step down that begins to look like we may lose some performance at some point but side by side they're the same thing but what about gen 1now we've dropped all the way down to pcie Genesis this has to make a difference right oh yes there we go it's finally starting to impact the performance we're still hitting about 190 frames per second but you can see it's starting to dip down into almost the 120s at 4K Ultra settings what a complete outrage honestly still like what the hell it's running on pcie gen 1 and we're still getting well over 120 frames per second at 4K that's kind of crazy but this but that's what Carnage looks like no my foot needs morenow unfortunately we've kind of run into our pcie gen rock bottom but luckily this NZXT motherboard does have a variety of pcie slots available so next we're going to drop it into this Forex slot at gen 1 and see what that does to the performanceI think we may be approaching our Cliff because in the menus we are just getting about a hundred frames per second which is half we were getting before yes it briefly hit 40 there so something's finally happening oh this is this is running very weirdly oh no it it feels a lot like I'm gaming on two 300 ping it's kind of giving me motion sickness it has a similar physiological effect and it's like really bad VR because there's this very clear disconnect between between where you move your mouse and what happens on screen is running well bad now but it can always run worsenow the cool thing about the 1X pcie slots on this NZXT motherboard is that they're not closed off at the end which means you can plug a full-sized connector into them which is very useful now there's a bunch of components under here so I am going to put some electrical tape across just so that the connector doesn't short out on anything there foreignly reasonable Okay so we've effectively managed to get the most powerful graphics card in the world gaming wise to barely be able to manage 20 frames per second oh we just hit 10 there oh no this kind of feels like the rest of my system is trying to communicate with my graphics card in Turkmenistan over a dialogue connection like it ita power Battlefield 5 was so unplayable that I couldn't finish this standard Benchmark run I do so the figures I'm showing you here are just from like a quarter of it which made me want to try one last thing I have to see if it can run Half-Life too because that would be the complete cherry on top if Half-Life 2 is unplayable on the 4090 oh no Half-Life 2 still runs on the 40 90. that's a bit disappointing although it does feel a little bit weird I can't quite put my finger on it but every time I feel like I'm noticing input lag it goes away it feels a bit like trying to observe whether light is a particle or a beam here in the Riverboat section it briefly dropped to 120 frames per second so it's not running very well but it is running but there really is this ethereal sense of desync however PC gaslighting aside Half-Life 2 was still very much playable which I think means we need to do a follow-up video where we use even more archaic connectors to see if we can the 4090 to the point where even a Half-Life 2 is unplayable subscribe to the channel if you don't want to miss that and yeah thank you for watching until the next video bye-byeforeignforeign
