Is the Gigabyte technology company Z68AP-D3 compatible with a 980 GTX graphics card?

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rovaira

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Is the Gigabyte technology company Z68AP-D3 compatible with a 980 GTX graphics card?

I'm debating whether to get a 970 or 980. I'm leaning toward a 970 just because I don't think a graphics card should cost so much, but not positive yet.

I currently have that motherboard, a 570 GTX card (playing Cities Skylines a lot), 16 gigs RAM, WIndows 7, and a 3.4 ghz 2600k I7 quad core. Thanks.
 
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Yup, that'll work fine. You're on PCIe 2.0, which technically halves the bandwidth between the graphics card and the rest of the system, but in reality it won't make a difference for a single card set up. Your rig is still solid.

980 is faster but more expensive. If you're rocking a 1080p@60 monitor then a 970 should be plenty, but 120/144hz, or 1440p monitor would benefit from the 980 (but again - it also costs more and the 970 is still no slouch) - so you decide whether it's worth the extra cash to you.

You might want to get around to OCing that CPU at some point.
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rhysiam

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Yup, that'll work fine. You're on PCIe 2.0, which technically halves the bandwidth between the graphics card and the rest of the system, but in reality it won't make a difference for a single card set up. Your rig is still solid.

980 is faster but more expensive. If you're rocking a 1080p@60 monitor then a 970 should be plenty, but 120/144hz, or 1440p monitor would benefit from the 980 (but again - it also costs more and the 970 is still no slouch) - so you decide whether it's worth the extra cash to you.

You might want to get around to OCing that CPU at some point.
 
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rhysiam

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Just for the record - you need an Ivy Bridge CPU to get PCIe 3.0, OP's Sandy Bridge will only support PCIe 2. Not that it really matters for single card rigs of course... I'm just being pedantic.
 
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rovaira

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Thanks. Yeah my cyberpower pc does have overclocking on it, but I turned it off a long time ago as it gets so hot in the room. The tower I have is a Thermaltake Tt which is pretty big (not that that matters here to much I wouldn't think.)
 
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JackNaylorPE

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OP asked about the board, not CPU, ....

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128538

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3897#ov

The GIGABYTE motherboard is fully configured to provide gamers with the latest Gen.3 PCI Express technology, delivering maximum data bandwidth for forthcoming discrete graphics cards.
* PCIe Gen. 3 is dependent on CPU and expansion card compatibility.
Click to expand...

Have seen the Board listed as both 3.0 (Version 2) and 2.0 .... not that it matters as the 9xx is backward compatible.
 
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rhysiam

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You do understand that the reason the board is sometimes listed as both is because it was launched with SB processors which were PCIe 2.0 only. So early spec-sheets at launch will list it as PCIe 2.0. Then IB was released (with Z77 mobos), which supported PCIe 3.0, and were socket compatible with Z68. So, update the firmware on an older Z68 board and pop in an IB CPU and you get PCIe 3.0.

So, telling OP that his board supports PCIe 3.0 without any qualification is misleading. It does support PCIe 3.0 but ONLY with an Ivy Bridge Processor... which he doesn't have as he told us in his first post. So in OPs current config it is PCIe 2.0 only.

As we both agree though, this is all a moot point really because PCIe 2 will work just fine.
 
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