What is most powerful PCI-e 1.x card?

So from reading an answer to my other question it seems my motherboard's 16x PCIe slot is not capable of running a 8800 GT because it is PCIe 2.0. Yes its supposed to be backwards compatible but in this particular case it isn't.

If I end up being forced to use a PCIe 1.x card, which is the most powerful I can get?
I checked nvidia and ATI websites but its very hard to find the details on the PCIe version numbers for each family of cards.

Or if anyone knows of a very powerful card that is confirmed to work with a Biostar P4M900-M4 motherboard, then listing that would help too. Basically Im just giving up on trying to get my 8800 GT to work in my mobo. Would it be worth trying a HD3870? =)

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

well, your 8800gt will work on x1, if it works at all, as long as its an 'open ended' slot, meaning you can stick x4 or x8 cards in it.

maybe you have a bad 8800gt??

Oh, btw, if it wont work in the x16 slot, it probably wont work in the x1 either (they are the same standard afterall, just different number of lanes)

yes I went to Nvidias website and went through their FAQ and found a "Preferred BIOS settings" for the card and went through them all as a checklist. so yes I had PCIe as first.

My motherboard is a Biostar P4M900-M4.

Its a mobo for the old Socket 478, I had to get it cuz i wanted to use my P4 3.06ghz HT processor but still have a PCIe x16 slot for new video cards.

Video cards will not work on pci-e x1 unless designed for that particular lane..there are adapters that will allow you to use different cards in these slots but you're still limited to what the lane speed is and in the case of x1 it's not worth a damn..
the 8800 series need x16 otherwise you might as well go with integrated grahics as sticking a 8800 into x1 lane.
For the 8800GT you should be able to get a firmware flash from the manufacturer that will set it to PCI-E 1 and allow your card to work.
I've answered this already on a similiar issue and it's quite possible it was yours?

Ive got the same question prior to reading your post here. I have an a8n and from all the advice I've been getting after finding it hard to decide, I get anything from ...just buy whatever you want, you can get it to work or just send it back if it doesn't to buy a new computer.

Obviously, I'm not going to buy a new computer at this point as mine is not that old. I won't go AMD again that's for sure. I would be in a MUCH better position now to upgrade the cpu and gpu if I would have just gone Intel to begin with, instead I'm stuck with slow memory and a socket 939 board. Sigh.

Regardless, I have to find something for PCIe 1.1 myself and from what everyone is telling me with a 24" monitor running at 1920 res, I need something that is 2.0 compatib. But I'm sure they are basing their information on benchmarks. Benchmarks where the board is utilizing the full stream processors whereas you and I CAN NOT obviously as our throughput is cut in half in comparison.

So at that point you have to ask yourself, is it worth getting something that you might not be able to utilize 100%.

They still have AGP support around, makes me a bit confused as to why they don't have FULL 1.1 support too!

Or maybe I am misunderstanding some of this, but from what I've read, this is the case.

S

You might want to change your motherboard if it will not work with PCI-Express 2.0 cards.

I was referring to michiganteddybear's post, and not yours.

Unfortunately, there have been some reports of new PCI-E 2.0 graphics cards refusing to POST (Power On Self-Test) in motherboards containing chipsets without PCI Express 2.0 support. We can assure you this is not by design as the PCI-SIG PCI Express 2.0 Specification is very clear on the issue - PCI Express 2.0 is backward-compatible with PCI Express 1.x in every case. With this in mind, and knowing that some PCI Express 1.x motherboards have no problems running the new graphics cards while others do, we have no choice but to blame the board in the case of no video. Unfortunately, this makes it difficult to determine if problems await during the upgrade process; you must first consult with others that use the same video card/motherboard combination. Thankfully the cases of incompatibility seem to be few and far between.

PCI-E 1.x and PCI-E 2.0 are fully backwards and forwards compatable. Any 2.0 card will run in a 1.x slot and a 1.x card will run in a 2.0 slot.

This is BAD information and you SHOULD NOT be telling people this. Have you tried every board and every card? Do I need to point out the countless threads in games where people have actually taken hits on their vista system score but do not realize it's the card compatibility?
Should I point out the threads where people can not POST because of their card but in a newer machine they do?

I'm not trying to be a hard ass or a jerk or anything, but I see SO many people giving computer advice when they haven't a clue, yet there are super gurus out there that are hesitant to post yet they could probably develop their own chipsets themselves. Not saying you aren't a guru or anything but I am saying that unless you are at least 80% sure, then you probably shouldn't be saying anything to people when there are hundreds of dollars and countless hours or misery at stake.

Hey, maybe it's the junk boards. I always buy the better boards and decent ram, usually *until I went amd* I never have crashes, freezes, or even bad hardware for all the things I've put together in the past.
Heck I still have a server at a company that has NEVER been downed, crashed or been opened in any way that has been running for over 4 years. It serves ONE purpose, and none of the drives have faulted either. All hot swap (inc ps's) and nothing has been needed. That's what the big boys do usually, they try to put together quality stuff but they slap a HUGE price on their servers, but I keep myself busy replacing their stuff to as ANYTHING will fail.

This has gotten to be a pain in my butt. I'm half tempted to setup a testing facility and fund that damn thing with hopes on returns or donations from the companies to start testing hardware compatibility. Not many sites doing this. Just slap in a card onto a platform, load some benchmarks and post them on their site. Blanket the site with a bazillion ads, slap a forum up and call it a corporation anymore.