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pci 2.0 card with a pci 1.0 Motherboard

jordan282

jordan282

jordan282

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4 Nov 2009
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756
Does the pci 2 work with pci 1?
If so does it hold true for all 2.0 cards?
I have an abit IP35 Pro motherboard and a 7900 GS
really want to upgrade
 
Yes a PCIe 2.0 card will work fine in a PCIe 1.0 board, I had my 4870X2 running in my old P35 DS4 for a year with no problem.
PCIe 2.0 has got just as many physical lanes in the slot as PCIe 1.1, only 2.0 has double the bandwidth of 1.1. What it means is each physical lane in 2.0 can transport double the data of each physical lane in 1.1.
So running a PCIe card 2.0 in 1.1 will halve the total bandwidth the card can use with the motherboard to access the cpu and ram. But this all depends on whether the card utilizes that bandwidth capacity of 2.0. If not then there is no gain with 2.0 over 1.1.
 
The 250 MB/sec bandwidth of PCI 1.0 is hardly utilised in games so the 500MB/sec of 2.0will make little if any difference.

Jonnygrunge said:
What res do you game at?
Click to expand...

You maybe confussing the PCI bandwidth with the amount of video memory required. If you have larger screen with big resolutions, then it's recomended to have larger video RAM.
 
Last edited:
Admiral Huddy said:
The 250 MB/sec bandwidth of PCI 1.0 is hardly utilised in games so the 500MB/sec of 2.0will make little if any difference.



You maybe confussing the PCI bandwidth with the amount of video memory required. If you have larger screen with big resolutions, then it's recomended to have larger video RAM.
Click to expand...

Quite agree, just did'nt make myself clear enough! Yeah large textures will require a larger amount of VRAM! It's been a LONG day just finishing work!
 
jordan282 said:
im a bit confused
so it will definately work but not 100 percent as good as 2.0
which gtx 260 do you reccomend?
Click to expand...

Don't be, the difference between the two in a gaming / real world point of view most of the time is un-noticable. Even when it is performance gains are quite marginal! Enjoy whatever VGA card you go for! :D
 
glad u wrote this question i have the same motherboard and everytime i asked the question in someone elses thread ppl ignored me :p

im running q6600 2.4 but have a 3.3 profile if i need it which i dont atm i dont think?
running on a 8800gtx 2gb ram 1920x1080 what video card would u recommend as a nice upgrade? winxp budget would be low as possible and i dont really feel like buying new ram atm with the current prices
 
Actually I've switched from an IP35 to an x58/i7 solution. I've read many times that the pci-e 1.1 limit is not an issue but my experience shows that it is - depending at what res you run at.

My situation is extreme, I'm running 5040x1050 and with a 4Ghz E8400 @4.0 on an IP35Pro and with a GTX295 I was getting no difference in frame rate whether I used 1 or both GPU's. At a favourite test point I would get 110fps.

Switching to an [email protected] on an x58 board with the GTX295 at the same test point I get 145fps with 1 gpu and 195 with both active. As its reckoned there is not much difference between the dual cores and i7's at the same clock speeds for gaming then it looks to me like the bandwidth was throttling the 295 on the older motherboard.

OP I think you'll be fine, just wanted to point out this can cause an issue.

Regards
Fred
 
as long as it works :) better to be able to buy newish tech gfx card rather then have to buy complete new mobo/build
 
I have been looking at this issue - I too only have a 1.1 pci-e and am contemplating an upgrade from a HD4850 - 512 mb to a 5850 :). I have a Q6600 at 3ghz with room to clock higher if necessary.

This aricle has encouraged me indicating that we would get 98-99% of the performance of pci-e 2.0

i almost upgraded from the 4850 to 4890 1gb given that I game at 1900x1200 but it wasn`t quite worth it - around £150 at the time. For around £200 for another step up it`s tempting.

Cheers
 
Yes that article convinced me that I was ok with a 295 on 1.1 at 5040x1050, I wasn't.

Depending on your resolution it can be much more than they indicate.

In fact when I went from the gtx280 to 295 I saw no difference in frame rate so I suspect that the 280 was also bottlenecked at the resolution I run.

Regards
Fred
 
Jonnygrunge said:
Yes a PCIe 2.0 card will work fine in a PCIe 1.0 board, I had my 4870X2 running in my old P35 DS4 for a year with no problem.
PCIe 2.0 has got just as many physical lanes in the slot as PCIe 1.1, only 2.0 has double the bandwidth of 1.1. What it means is each physical lane in 2.0 can transport double the data of each physical lane in 1.1.
So running a PCIe card 2.0 in 1.1 will halve the total bandwidth the card can use with the motherboard to access the cpu and ram. But this all depends on whether the card utilizes that bandwidth capacity of 2.0. If not then there is no gain with 2.0 over 1.1.
Click to expand...

Some 4870x2 have problems with Intel X38 motherboards. There is a tiny little switch near the DVI connector end that changes the card to 1.1 compatability. I had a Sapphire 4870x2 and had to do this with my Abit QuadGT. Took a while to figure it out tho as when you plug it in you get no display as though the card is faulty.
 
I cant remember the link but there was quite a comprehensive comparison of different pcie bus speeds and the real world performance difference between pcie 2.0 8x (basically pcie 1 16x) and pcie 2.0 16x was at most 5% ish and generally nothing.

edit: ahh the link is above, i missed it
 
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