14 DAY TRIAL // Back when Kepler was launched this spring, Nvidia fans were somewhat disappointed by the fact that the cards based on the new GPU were not able to benefit from the PCI-Express 3.0 interface that the company was touting. Now, Nvidia provided a patch that almost fixes the problem.
“Almost” is probably the best word for it as the company itself says that:
“We have tested GeForce GTX 680 and GTX 670 GPUs across a number of X79/SNB-E platforms at 8GT/s bus speeds, but have seen significant variation in signal timing across different motherboards and CPUs.
Therefore we’ve decided to only support and guarantee PCI Express 2.0 bus speeds on X79/SNB-E with our standard release drivers. Native PCI Express 3.0 platforms (like Ivy Bridge) will run at 8GT/s bus speeds with our standard release drivers.”
So, the results are not as they would be desired by the users, but some improvements have been noticed.
The patch is provided as a simple free piece of software with the “use at your own risk” sticker.
Nvidia even programmed a DOS command to deactivate the patch. Users wanting to revert back to 5GT/s bus speeds can do so by running the following command from the DOS command line: “force-enable-gen3.exe –revert”
The company clearly warns the users:
“We cannot officially support or guarantee 8GT/s speeds for X79/SNB-E, you can manually enable faster 8GT/s bus speeds (at your own risk) on GTX 680 or GTX 670 GPUs using the following executable: force-enable-gen3.exe”
The file can be downloaded here and the system needs to be rebooted for the changes to take effect.