HELP motherboard accept PCI Express 3.0?

Bcandy

Reputable
Oct 21, 2014
3
0
4,510
I have a MS-7529 and I'm about to purchase a geforce gt640 ddr3 but I don't know if both are compatible. Any suggestions?
 
Solution
PCI Express 2 and 3 are forward and backward compatible, but you apparently have a 1st Gen PCI Express. Those should be compatible (and usually are), check the detailed card specs or ask the manufacturer support to be 100% sure. Your performance may suffer a little though as the speed of PCI Express Gen 1 is a bit slower, although you do have an x16 slot so it should not be too bad.

edit: Zotac specifically notes that their models are all backward compatible to 1.1 slots.

RealBeast

Titan
Moderator
PCI Express 2 and 3 are forward and backward compatible, but you apparently have a 1st Gen PCI Express. Those should be compatible (and usually are), check the detailed card specs or ask the manufacturer support to be 100% sure. Your performance may suffer a little though as the speed of PCI Express Gen 1 is a bit slower, although you do have an x16 slot so it should not be too bad.

edit: Zotac specifically notes that their models are all backward compatible to 1.1 slots.
 
Solution

Bcandy

Reputable
Oct 21, 2014
3
0
4,510



Thanks for replying! I'll probably get a new pc, mine is getting really old. It was a cheap investment I made honestly.
 

RealBeast

Titan
Moderator
If you can just use it for a little longer the GTX 970 cards will come back into stock and after Christmas the prices will come down and/or have rebates for a nice performance increase over anything that you have now.

I'm holding out with an old HD5750 and will be going with a new build myself probably after Christmas with a GTX 970, X99, and 8 core way too expensive CPU. But I've kept my old i7-2600K/Z68 much longer than usual since it has been doing the job with some SSD and memory updates.