PCIe x3 in a PCIe x1 slot

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GaryFromLondon

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Aug 8, 2013
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I have an Acer Aspire x1700

The Graphics card that comes with it is a Nvidia GT 320

I want to upgrade it to get a bit more performance.

I was looking at the GTX 660, as it seems the best value for the increase in performance.

I'm led to believe the GTX 660 will fit in ok, but will it suffer a big performance drop from it's maximum, because it's PCIe x3 and the slot is only PCIe x1.

If it does, is there any other cards that will be better for what i need.

Just to add, I will be upgrading my PSU from the 220w thats in there now to something more in the region of a 650-750w unit.

I have an extra fan attached to the case, which keeps the normally hot unit ultra cool

Also I can modify the case if needed to fit in a card with larger dimensions.

 
Solution
RealBeast
Your current card is a PCIe x16 card, so the 660 will work fine if it will physically fit inside the case, or if you can modify that case as you say.

I would measure to be sure since the GT320 is a low profile card -- the 660 is 2 inches taller, about 3 inches longer and requires 2 slots instead of one like the GT320.
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JRAtk94

JRAtk94

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It should work fine - it won't suffer a big performance drop - just a marginal one. Maybe ~10%.

Also, you don't need a 650W PSU - 500W will be fine. Make sure it's quality though - Corsair, XFX, Seasonic, Antec etc.
 
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RealBeast

RealBeast

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Your current card is a PCIe x16 card, so the 660 will work fine if it will physically fit inside the case, or if you can modify that case as you say.

I would measure to be sure since the GT320 is a low profile card -- the 660 is 2 inches taller, about 3 inches longer and requires 2 slots instead of one like the GT320.
 
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GaryFromLondon

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Thanks for all your input guys, much appreciated.

I've had the unit apart, and the the card is right next to the side, height and width of GTX 660 card would mean modification to the case cover that comes off, which is not a problem to do.

Unfortunately the extra length, as mentioned earlier of nearly 3 inches, would mean the card would be impeded by a couple of power connectors further along the edge of the Motherboard.

So it looks like it's back to the drawing board, maybe another card that is not so long, any suggestions would be welcomed.

Looking at the GTX 660 specs and performance benchmarks it would have been about 10 x as powerful as my existing card, which would have been great, but I suppose anything that would upgrade my GPU above what i have at a reasonable price and fit in would be good
 
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GaryFromLondon

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Update

Have been looking and the GTX 650 Ti may be a better bet

It would give me about 4x upgrade to my GPU for about just over half the price of the GTX 660

It's still as high and wide as the 660, but is actually slightly shorter than the card i have at the moment, so will fit in easily with the mods to case mentioned.

The only issue i have is the slots, as you and the specs say it's width is 2 slots

Now am i right in thinking it only takes up the width of 2 slots, it doesn't actually physically fit in 2 slots
 
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RealBeast

RealBeast

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Yeah it just needs the space of two back slots, it only uses one PCIe slot to attach. The fastest card that will actually fit that I could find is THIS Radeon HD7750, which is a big step down from the 650/660. I would seriously consider a new build rather than the 7750 for gaming.
 
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GaryFromLondon

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Have taken note about the 7750 which looks like it will fit in without any mods to case, though don't mind doing that to get the extra power if i can. About 20-30 minutes to cut and shut as they say in the car world.

As for suggestions of a new build, i am going down that route as well.

I've played a lot of FPS games over the years, and had 4 computers for me my daughter and friends to play online and LAN gaming parties, the computers are about 6-7 years old single core Pentium 4 and now struggling to keep up, so was going to build a couple of new ones, with the help of a friend, who has already done a few builds of his own.

But when another friend had this computer for sale at cheap money, thought it would be a nice addition to the collection, and it does the job pretty well, with the settings turned down a bit in the more graphic intense games, but thought if I could perk it up a bit more then why not

Money is not a big problem and expect to spend £2000-3000 uk pounds on building a couple of all singing all dancing new systems, but having said that i don't like to waste money, and like to get value for money, so a 3rd system with reasonably specs at a reasonable price will do very nicely :)


 
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GaryFromLondon

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