The long-standing issue that still exists on MSI motherboards has been identified by the company.
MSI Rolls Out BIOS Version 7E51v1A81 for MAG X870 Tomahawk WiFi to Fix PCIe GPU Throttling
A strange bug was reportedly affecting the PCIe lane allocation for GPUs installed on MSI AM5 motherboards. There have been numerous reports from last year indicating that the issue isn't limited to MSI motherboards, but sometimes occurs on motherboards from GIGABYTE and ASUS. https://x.com/unikoshardware/status/1909314979968528496 previously reported several such instances, where users found their GPUs capped at a much lower PCIe link speed than they should.
This issue usually appeared on cold boots, but it was mostly random and didn't happen every time. As far as we can tell from the reports, it's mostly prevalent on MSI AM5 motherboards, which is why we see a lot of threads about this issue even on MSI forums. Users have reported weird behaviors where, in some cases, the system would boot in a PCIe 5.0 x8 mode instead of PCIe 5.0 x16, but after switching off the PSU manually before cold boot, the system starts normally at PCIe 5.0 x16.
MSI reportedly tried replicating the issue with various configurations, and according to @unikoshardware, it finally found the root cause, which stems from a certain combination of "motherboard+bios+AGESA+CPU+GPU". MSI has now rolled out the first fix through the BIOS update 7E51v1A81, which ships with AMD AGESA PI Pre-13.0.0 microcode and also carries the fix to mitigate the PCIe mode lock. In many cases, we saw GPUs getting locked at PCIe Gen 2.0 and Gen 3.0, which greatly affected the performance of modern AMD and NVIDIA GPUs.
Currently, the new BIOS update seems to be only available for one model: MSI MAG X870 Tomahawk WiFi, but it should roll out for other AM5 models soon. This issue exists on both 600 and 800-series motherboards, and according to some users, the AGESA 1.2.0.3 branch made it worse. That said, with the latest BIOS, some users are reportedly seeing success, while others are seeing no change, according to a Reddit thread.
News Source: MSI
About the author: Sarfraz Khan is a hardware reporter with a focus on PC components and the builder community. With years of experience writing about PC hardware and laptops, his work has been featured on several reputable technology publications. Sarfraz's hands-on experience is demonstrated through his first-person accounts of using and comparing different hardware configurations, providing practical and relatable insights for everyday users. His technical analysis is respected by peers in the enthusiast community and has been cited by specialized hardware sites such as Germany's Igor's Lab.
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