HP Omen 880-160se desktop owners with 8700k help

[FattysGoneWild]

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@Big_Davewrote:

@FattysGoneWild

Yes I read his post but that doesn't eliminate the GTX 1080TI from being fixed at x8 hence the suggestion to test the card in another PC.

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Fair enough. I am very curious myself but my pc being brand new. I am not willing to check. 

[Marc_L_NY]

Sorry I can't help, I sent my desktop back.  The MOB or BIOS is defective and putting the GPU into PCIe x8 and not x16.  Any GPU in this desktop would step down to PCIe x8, I tested this already. I don't believe my 1080TI GPU was defective but that’s irrelevant for my situation.  

[Big_Dave]

I am curious why HP has different part numbers for the SLI models verses the non-SLI models. Most of the retail 1080TI graphic cards are already provisioned for HB SLI.

@Marc_L_NY Did you clear the CMOS in between testing the 1080TI and the GTX 750?

[callahan09]

I'm thinking of buying one of these because the price is quite good, but I'm worried about the 8-lane issue for the GTX 1080 Ti.

First question, is there even a decent chance that HP can and will ever fix this issue with a BIOS update?

Second question, how much impact does this actually have on gaming?  I have seen some tests done by Gamer's Nexus that indicate less than a 1% framerate drop on a GTX 1080 on x8 vs x16.  First problem I have is that might be true of the games they tested, but is it possible some games could show a more extreme difference?  And secondly, I've seen no such tests done on an actual 1080 Ti.  Is it possibly a worse performance reduction for a Ti and if so, how much worse?  Is it pointless to spend so much money on a computer with an expensive NVMe SSD boot drive AND a GTX 1080 Ti if the combo with this motherboard will bottleneck the Ti to a noticeable extent?  I'm concerned, but may still make the purchase depending on the response from this community.

Thanks for any answers anyone can provide!

[Big_Dave]

@callahan09

HP has it's hands full with producing BIOS updates for Spectre and Meltdown so a new BIOS update that could fix the x8 issue if it's not the 1080TI SLI card may take a while. The Omen is a top end PC so it should get some priority (speculative guess).

You are on the wrong forum for seeking information on extreme differences between x8 and x16 for unknown games. Even then, it may also depend on screen resolution such as 4K and 2k. SLI will not always beat non-SLI on every game and will lose on some games.

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I was going to buy a new mobo (Z370) and the 8700k but instead I am going to bypass this technology and wait until Intel releases the next chipset.  I was headed to 3-way NVMe RAID 0 with a different manufacturer but I am going to wait.

The Omen 880-160se is an excellent package using the existing technology.

[Howie411]

Just got my custom built machine with an 8700K and a 1070 Geforce GTX.  Ran GPU-Z and its showing PCIe x16 3.0 @ x8 1.1   So there is definitely an issue.

[Grzwacz]

Hi

My best guess (only a guess) on this conundrum is HP may be locking x8 on both PCIe x16 sockets to accommodate SLI or Crossfire. The processor is providing 16 lanes for graphics.

There are no additional x1 slots for other devices and there is one M.2 socket 3, key M for NVME storage. The Z370 chipset would be providing lanes for PCIe 3x4 mode on the M.2 socket 3, key M.

The general consensus around the web is a PCIe x16 slot running at x8 results in minor performance differences.

Try all the tests Big_Dave suggests.

Try the HP 1080 Ti in a different PC where you know one graphics card runs at x16 when installed in the correct x16 slot near the processor socket.

Tom

[Marc_L_NY]

I just heard back from HP tech support.  They have confirmed what I suspected. There is only one BIOS version which is configured to enable both PCIe GPU slots in x8 link width (SLI).   The MOB does not have a physical switch to disable one PCIe GPU slot so a new BIOS version is need for folks with a single GPU to work in x16. They have not committed yet to creating new BIOS for single GPU setups.   

[Howie411]

Hope that isn't the case.  That is poor programming on HP's part if that is the case.   There shouldn't need to be 2 seperate bios's.  The system should be able to detect how many Video cards are install and adjust accordingly.    If this is the case I'll be returning my system.  Unacceptable for a high end gaming machine.   I currently have an open case with HP's executive escalation team regarding this.

[Big_Dave]

@Howie411

I agree with you.  Only one BIOS is needed and it should adjust automatically.