4870X2/GTX280 on PCI-E 1.0 (16x) Slot

I remember reading the tom's article on bandwidth of the 8xxx nvidia cards on different number of lanes, and remember that only the 8800GTX actually lost a bit of performance using a 4x PCI-E 1.0 slot.

Now with the next gen cards, the cards like the 4870X2 and the GTX280 that are designed for PCI-E 2.0 (32x), How do they perform on a PCI-E 1.0 (16x) slot? (non sli of course)

Can tom's do a review on this for us? I'm sure i'm not the only one with a pre PCI-E 2.0 board.

Thanks.

if 4x was too slow for the last gen, I'd say x8 should be the cut off. With all the MB supporting 2.0, 8X runs as fast on these new cards as 16X did on the GTX. We should have some breathing room for a while. (at least until 3.0 in 2010)

That is also what I read. Besides, isn't PCI-Express 2.0 also 16x (lanes)? I'm not aware of 32x PCI-E 2.0 slots.

Pretty sure it's the 3850 that starts getting bottlenecked at 4x. I would definitely shoot for 2.0 for 48xx stuff!

Actually, at $99.99, a P45 motherboard with PCIE2.0x16(x32 actual) is quite affordable.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813130181

The expensive ones are x38/x48, $200+, which runs crossfire with PCIE2.0x16(x32) in both of its 2 slots.

How can anyone possibly know this... when one of those cards isn't even anything other than speculation.

Tbh I think that the 8x line has probably been reached by the higher end cards. Id be surprised if it wasn't. But then again PCI-E2 doubles the bandwidth, so 8 lanes on PCI-E2 should be ok.

PCI-E1 x16 should be fine too

yup i thought so too, there is enough already on the bus...

I'm itching for a 4870X2, i really dont want another Nvidia card, i've bought nvidia since geforce 256. But if there are no linux drivers for the 4870x2 then i'll settle with a gtx280

This has been posted before:
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/ [...] index.html

The p45 use PCIE2.0. Old p35 with PCIE1.1 will likely do worse.