PCI-e 2.0

[darksidedragon]

Hi guys,

Been out of the loop for a while now, so not really sure about all the new technologies. Unfortunately, my 8800GTX died a horrible death yesterday and seems to have taken my PSU with it. Haven't really got the money to build a completely new PC to replace the old one, so I'm just intending to get a new PSU and graphics card for the time being (I'll use the new bits to test the old graphics and PSU just to check that they are dead!). However, I realised that the new cards are all PCI-e 2.0. Will it make much of a difference that I'm using an ATI 4870 on my Gigabyte 965P DS3 motherboard, which is only PCI-e 1?

I'm planning on putting a new system together once I have the money (hence buying an expensive graphics card now). Would any of you happen to know if there are any CPU/RAM advances I should wait a bit for before doing this?

Thanks in advance!

P.S. I'm planning on getting a Corsair 1000W PSU. Does anyone know what the difference in amps on the +12V rails is compared to the Corsair 620W?

 

[michaelmk86]

Doesn’t mater if it is PCI-e 1.1 or PCI-e 2.0 will not make difference in speed even if you use 4870x2. But if you have PCI-e 1.0 will NOT work with Graphics Cards PCI-e 2.0

 

[EXT64]

I put a 4850 (PCI-E 2.0) in a A8N-SLI (I think PCI-E 1.0, it was one of the original PCI-E boards and back before they labeled them, but I could be wrong) and it was fine.

 

[mehcrim]

It should work.

PCI-E 2.0 is backward compatible, and there is a big difference if you have a card with 1gig ram but only 256bit bus, so double bandwidth = around 512bit (theoretically) which i know has improved my 9800gt 1gig by a big amount on my rez.

 

[turboflame]

there is a big difference if you have a card with 1gig ram but only 256bit bus, so double bandwidth = around 512bit (theoretically) which i know has improved my 9800gt 1gig by a big amount on my rez.

PCI express does not double the bandwidth from the GPU to the graphics memory, it double the bandwidth from the graphics card to the northbridge. There would be no noticeable difference on a 9800GT.