Maximum PC

Assembled this new build over the weekend:

MB: GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD5H
CPU: i-7 3770K
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB DDR3 1600
GPU: SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 7970 OC 3GB 384-bit GDDR5
PSU: COOLER MASTER Silent Pro Gold 1000W
HS: Noctua NH-D14
SSD: Corsair Force Series GT 240GB

Build was smooth, windows load and all updates smooth, temps normal, no o/c yet, only tweaked ram timings. Drivers are current, directx 11 installed.

After everything was updated and running, I installed and ran 3Dmark 11 basic. I didn't even let it finish because during the first graphics test it was maxing out at 7 FPS.

I took the 7970 out and hit the pcie slot with some compressed air. Re-seated the card, uninstalled and reloaded the driver, but same results.

I don't know what these numbers are worth or what they are measuring, but I also noticed that the windows experience index graphics measurements were 4.4 (graphics) and 4.9 (gaming graphics). All the other three measurements were where I'd expect (7.7-7.9).

After a few more gpu re-seats, driver re-installations, and a re-load of windows, the problem persisted.

Then I decided to try the card in the pcie x8 slot. Surprisingly, my WEI graphics measurements went up to 7.7 and 7.9, respectively, and running 3DMark got me around 30FPS on average and a score of around 5000 on 'Performance'. Not very good at all, but not unreasonable from the x8 slot. The physics and combines scores were where they were supposed to be...graphics was pulling it down.

I tried it in the x16 slot again but got the same results as before.

The 3D bios alludes to a place where I can check the status of the pcie slots and even disable them, but I could not for the life of me find anything like that.

I'm going to call gigabyte when I get home from work this evening to see what they have to say, but I thought I'd check here and see if there's something you all can offer me. I'm really hoping that this is something dumb that I'm missing or doing wrong.

Are you sure that it was a PCI-Express x16 slot with all 16 lanes, or a PCI-Express x16 slot that was maybe x2 or x4? There are motherboards out there that look like they have PCI-Express x16 slots, but they're not electrically x16.

It's the top slot (closest to the cpu), listed as x16 running at x16. Visually I can see pins all the way down the slot, whereas the x8 slot only has pins half way down the slot and the x4 only has pins 1/4 of the way.

Another thing that I suppose is worth mentioning is that the NH-D14 is RIGHT NEXT TO the video card. I had to install it vertically (blowing towards the top of the case) because of my RAM height. They are not touching, but the NH-D14 'intake' fan is mere millimeters from the back of the 7970. I really doubt that's the issue; just throwing it out there because I'm a desperate and lost soul at this point.

Update...I didn't have as much time as I hoped to work on it last night, but I did install and run GPU-Z. With the render test running it said the video card was reporting that it was running at pcie x16, 3.0. I'm not very familiar with this utility, does this tell me anything new? This coupled with the fact that the card ran relatively normally in the x8 slot leads me to believe that in some way, the motherboard is to blame. Is there some setting I'm not seeing? Might it be a defective slot? The latter does not seem very likely to me.

The F7 BIOS update (released 5/11) 'fixed the glitch'.