PCI-E 2.0 x16 32-Bit

[lmartinefc]

Hi,

My motherboard has given the PCI-Express specification as being 2.0 (x16) 32-Bit

What graphics cards are suitable for this?

The mobo has built in Nvidia ION chipset with max 512mb shared memory (can somebody please explain what this means....it steals some RAM or something?)

I want to put a decent Nvidia card in but within the spec listed about. There was some talk about the ION chipset having hybrid/inbuilt SLI ?

Help appreciated

Regards

Luke

 

[lmartinefc]

Also...thinking more about the Hybrid SLI...the card I plug in will have to match...

The MOBO is an ASRock A330ION... not sure what version of Nvidia ION they use. Or if it even supports hyrbid SLI. Most people seem to use a matching 8400 GS?

Looking for some help from someone in the know!

 

[boldor]

Nvidia ION is a built in graphics processor, aka. gpu. It may affect your system memory and thereby your random access memory, aka RAM.

As for your gfx card purchase. I would not advise playing with the ION in sli. Instead, buy a decent graphics card (almost every single one of them nowdays uses PCI-Express) or even buy two or three of them and run them in sli and then disable the ION so it wont use ur machines resources unnecessarily.

Good luck

 

[lmartinefc]

Hi, thanks for the response.

Just wanted to know which cards I can use...am limited to PCI-E 2.0 / 32 bit

Not exactly sure what this means so came here for some guidance. Anything above this wont work

Most card have "memory addressing" of 64 or 128 bit...or is this something completely seperate.

Not sure what is mean by '32-bit PCI-E' on the ASRock A330ION manual. I know it is full x16 (16 channels)

 

[lmartinefc]

Further to last, here is the board

http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=A330ION

ION details :
- Integrated NVIDIA® GeForce 9 Series
- DX10 VGA, Pixel Shader 4.0
- Max. shared memory 512MB

- 1 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot (states on other sites it is PCI 32 bit??)

 

[lmartinefc]

anyone????

 

[dgingeri]

you're going to be processor limited no matter which GPU you buy. I wouldn't recommend anything beyond maybe a GT 240. Anything better would perform horribly no matter what, and would be a waste of money.

 

[lmartinefc]

why would it perform horribly? does the processor issue instructions to the GPU...so there would be a bottle neck where the processor cant send enough data to the GPU?

Looking to overclock to 2.1Ghz dual core...from stock 1.6Ghz. Everyone says this is easy (as its supplied underclocked to keep power usage down) but cant find any help anywhere!)

 

[dgingeri]

read this and you'll understand better:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/balanced-gaming-pc-overclock,2625.html

 

[lmartinefc]

I can see it mentions how CPU can hamper the GPU...as it cannot keep up with certain tasks. But where do you draw the line. How did you know to say a GT240 should be the limit...where does the logic come in?

 

[dgingeri]

The Atom cpu, which you have with that ION system, is extremely slow. it is cheap and low power for the target devices it is used in, but it was never meant for gaming at all. Sure, it could play some older games, but I wouldn't play anything more than a really basic game on it.

Figure that 1.6GHz ION is about equal to a 1.2GHz Core 2. Even overclocked to 2.1GHz, it wouldn't even be up to matching a 1.6GHz Core 2. It is dual core, so you would have that going for you, but that's not much.

 

[lmartinefc]

I understand it was not meant for gaming. I did not buy it for this purpose. but would like to make it "all it can be"

Got it running 4Gb Dual Channel DDR3 6-6-6-20 latency

Velociraptor drive soon to be installed, with Solid state boot drive

Just want to get best Nvidia graphics that will be utilized (uses Geforce 9 series ION imbedded)

So you think GT240 will be the max?

Any other thoughts?