How Many PCIe Lanes Do I Have? A Guide to Know

PCIe is the abbreviation of Peripheral Component Interconnect Express. 

Various PCIe slots have various physical configurations, such as x1, x4, x8, x16, and x32. The number after the x indicates the number of lanes in that PCIe slot. For example, a PCIe x8 slot has eight lanes and can move data at eight bits per cycle, and so on.

Basically, the PCIe lanes number depends on your processor and the motherboard chipset. The easiest way to know how many PCIe lanes you have is to review the specifications of the components.

Is It Important to Know How Many PCIe Lanes I Have?

It’s quite important to know the number of PCIe lanes when you need to add a new card to the PCIe slot. If there are limited PCIe lanes, and you force to install components that occupy more than that, the components will become less productive.

You should also keep in mind that the number of available PCIe lanes in the system is not equal to the lanes that you can use. The motherboard controllers and components use the maximum of lanes.

Here, you can see, in terms of PCIe generation, the higher the generation becomes; the more bandwidth, transfer rate, and frequency rate they consist.

How to Know About My Available PCIe Lanes?

You’ve to check your CPU and the motherboard chipset’s specification document to find out the total available amount of PCIe lanes on your computer. 

1. Available PCIe lanes (CPU)

The CPU lanes power-ups the main PCIe slots of the motherboard. The processor may have lanes within the quantity of 16 to 128 according to high, low, and average quality. The AMD Ryzen processor in general has 24 lanes while the Intel Core may have from 16 to 20 lanes.

Look at the table to see the number of available PCIe lanes on modern CPUs.

Processor	Generation	PCIe Lanes	Supported Version
Intel Core	11th	20	V4.0 and 5.0
Intel Core	11th	20	v3.0
Intel Core	10th	16	v3.0
Intel Core	9th	16	v3.0
Intel Core X	Casade Lake	48	v3.0
Intel Xeon	Casade Lake	48	v3.0
AMD Ryzen	5000 Series	24	v4.0
AMD Ryzen	3000 Series (Non-G Suffix) (Zen 2)	24	v4.0
AMD Ryzen	3000 Series (G-Suffix) (Zen+)	12	v3.0
AMD Ryzen	2000 Series	24	v3.0
AMD Threadripper	3000 Series	64	v4.0
AMD Threadripper (WX)	3000 Series	128	v4.0

Motive of CPU PCIe lanes

The CPU lanes basically power-ups the main PCIe x16 slot along with the secondary x8 slot. These slots are generally used by the graphics card. 

In fact, the similar bandwidth gets divided in terms of more than one card. In case, there is just a single slot, the graphics card will use the whole bandwidth.

2. Available PCIe lanes (Motherboard Chipset)

In essence, motherboards are constructed on a certain chipset. The number of PCIe Lanes varies depending on the architecture of the chipset. You can check the manufacturer’s website to learn how many PCIe lanes a particular chipset offers. 

These are categorized as a workstation, high, mid, and budget. More PCIe lanes can afford more PCIe slots or components to a chipset. Such as USB ports, WIFI, etc. 

Look at the table to see the number of PCIe lanes on modern chipsets.

Manufacturer	Chipset	PCIe Lanes	Category
AMD	X570	16	High Performance
	B550	10	Mid Range
	A520	6	Budget
	TRX40	16	Workstation
Intel	Z690	28 -12x v4.0 -16x v3.0	High Performance
	H670	24 -12x v4.0  -12x v3.0	High Performance (Minus overclocking support)
	B660	14 -6x v4.0 -8x v3.0	Mid Range
	H610	12 -12x v3.0	Budget
	Z590	24	High Performance
	Z490	24	High Performance
	B460	16	Mid Range / Mainstream
	B560	12	Mid Range / Mainstream
	X299	24	Workstation
	H510	4	Budget

You can’t use all of the PCIe lanes listed here as PCIe slots. The controllers and other elements built into the motherboard occupy most of the lanes.

Motive of chipset PCIe lanes

The fact is chipset lanes can’t handle high bandwidth devices, but they are quite feasible while using high-speed I/O devices like x1 or x4.

The motherboard’s integrated systems are generally controlled by chipset lanes like modem, USB controller, SATA controller, etc.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How do I check my GPU PCIe lanes?

The solution is quite easy. 

• Install a hardware diagnostic application. 
• Launch the application and go for the bus section.
• Look for the PCIe bus number of the working PCIe lanes.

How do I check my NVME PCIe lanes?

Use one of these methods to check your NVMe PCIe lanes –

• Check the motherboard yourself.
• Use a relevant third-party application.
• Read the hardcopy user manual.
• Read the online specification sheet.

How many lanes are in PCIe?

Every PCIe connection has 1, 4, 8, 16, or 32 lanes for transmitting data as a standard. With more PCIe lanes, the bandwidth will rise proportionally.

Conclusion

Knowing about your available PCIe lanes is essential before inserting any sub-components. We hope this article has provided you with the relevant information that’ll help you to know about your available PCIe lanes.