Upgrade to Geforce 460 on old nForce 650i PCIe x16 board?

[JonnyDeeWSC]

Hi all,

I've taken a quick pass through some posts on the forum about this and wanted to put my specific situation up for consideration: I put together a pretty good gaming rig three years ago, and am considering some selective upgrades. The one I'm currently considering is upgrading to a Geforce 460 from my old Geforce 8800 GTX.

However, one of the problems is that my motherboard is PCIe 1.0 x16 , not 2.0. Is this going to significantly limit the performance gain that I'm going to see? And are there any other considerations that I'm missing?

To be honest, I'd rather not start thinking too much about upgrading the motherboard and/or cpu because I don't really *need* to--I could upgrade the mobo to a different LGA775 board, but that seems sub-optimal, because it opens up a whole a slippery slope (i.e. because if I'm upgrading the board, I should just go to an LGA 1156 board and get a new Core i5....)

Specs for my board and the 460 below.

Thanks in advance!
J

MSI P6N SLI Platinum LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130081

eVGA Geforce 460: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130566&cm_re=geforce_460_1gb-_-14-130-566-_-Product

 

[Helltech]

Well if you plan on upgrading in the future the 460 would be a good choice as it will last you when you do upgrade your CPU/Mobo/RAM

What is your PSU, however, and monitor resolution?

If your only concern is weather your 2.0 card will work in a 1.0 slot then you shouldn't be worried, it won't be as fast but the difference is just a few FPS. I would advise against a 2.1 card however, as there are known bugs when being used in a 1.0 slot. 2.0 however is fine.

 

[coozie7]

The GTX460 is not fast enough to saturate a PCI-E 1.0 slot, any performance hit will be tiny, microscopic, relly, really small
What CPU/memory/monitor do you have? It is possible your rig is already well balanced and only a full MB/CPU/RAM/GPU change will give any useful benefits.

 

[JonnyDeeWSC]

Thanks for the fast responses! Maybe an upgrade to the 460 might be in order.

Requested info below. (Sorry for weird names--cut and pasted from various newegg orders.)

Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD4000KD 400GB 7200 RPM SATA 1.5Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive -Bare Drive

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor BX80562Q6600

Monitor: SAMSUNG 204BW Black 20" 6ms Widescreen LCD Monitor with Height Adjustments (I typically play games at 1600x1050, and not above.)

PSU: OCZ GameXStream OCZ700GXSSLI 700W ATX12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready Active PFC Power Supply

RAM: 4 Total sticks (ie 8gb): OCZ Platinum Revision 2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model OCZ2P800R22GK

 

[coozie7]

Nice setup, mate.
Yes, the GTX460 is a sound upgrade, but the CPU is really crying out for some overclocking abuse, get yourself a decent aftermarket cooler and read up on the subject to really relase the full power of the GTX460.

edit: Nice one ct1615, shame I'm so slow on the keyboard

 

[Guest]

Can GTX460 or other 400 series work in PCE-16 slot? can anyone confirm it?
I real doubt it. I have the similar situation as OP. I tried ATI 5850 and 5830 replace my GT8800. None of them can work with ASUS old motherboard for Core2 Duo. I searched info from internet and many say PCIE-2.0 graphic card can't work in 1.0 slot but 1.1 or upper.
if Nvidia 400 series card could work in PCIE-x16 slot, it will be a big advantage than ATI.

 

[Guest]

2.0 cards have no issue running in 1.0 slots. 2.1 cards sometimes have issues in 1.0 slots when there was no BIOS update done by the manufacturer to support 2.1.

thanks for reply but I am afraid to hear any theory. GT8000 also is a PCI2.0 card and work fine in my pc. I need someone has real experience to confirm 400 series work or not. Bios upgrade not help at all for my experience.

 

[Helltech]

is GTX460 2.1 or 2.0 card?

2.0. You could try a BIOS update if you are having problems, by the way.

 

[Helltech]

thanks for reply but I am afraid to hear that. I need someone has real experience to confirm it work or not. Bios upgrade not help at all for my experience.

I used my GTX 260 in my 939 ASUS SLI Deluxe motherboard, it only had a PCI-e 1.0 slot, and worked perfect.

2.0 DOES work with 1.0 there are no hiccups or anything.

2.1 is a different story, but we are not talking about that.

 

[Guest]

I used my GTX 260 in my 939 ASUS SLI Deluxe motherboard, it only had a PCI-e 1.0 slot, and worked perfect.

2.0 DOES work with 1.0 there are no hiccups or anything.

2.1 is a different story, but we are not talking about that.

I just wonder if 460/470/480 work or not since I tried 5850 and it doesn't work. AMD even say 5850 only need PCI-E x16 slot. Bios update has no help for my case.

 

[Guest]

its not a theory

so you did install a 460/470 or 480 card in a PCI-E 1.0 slot?

 

[Guest]

the 8800GT is a 2.0 card
http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_geforce_8800_gt_us.html

like the GTX 460
http://www.nvidia.com/object/product-geforce-gtx-460-us.html

i do have the GTX460 but on a 2.0 slot

and the this forum is full of posts about ATI 2.1 5850, 5770, 5670, etc., where they can't run on PCI-E 1.0 x16 slots. Most of the mobo's are old (1.0 slot obviously) and have no BIOS updates to support 2.1 or are DELL,HP, ACER, etc., that rarely update the BIOS in older PCs anyways.

so is GTX 460 2.0 instead 2.1? I just worry they claim it is 2.0 but it actually is 2.1. That's why i real need someone installed it on 1.0 slot to claim it. thanks anyway

 

[JonnyDeeWSC]

Just wanted to say thanks for all the advice everyone! I ended up installing an eVGA Superclocked 460 in place of my old 8800 GTS.

I ran a non-scientific test in Bioshock 2 and things seem to be okay, but that's not super graphically taxing. I tried the Resident Evil 5 benchmarking and scored a little bit better than I had previously (I think I had a C before and now have a B.) Unfortunately, I'm just not into that many super high-end games these days.

The only thing I've noticed is about a 10 degree increase in CPU temperature. Before, after startup, I'd be running in the high 20's/30's. During a game, my CPU temp would get up to about 40, sometimes 50.

When I started it up this last time, I started in the high 30's and got up to 50 while running the RE5 benchmark. I'm unsure whether this is because the 460 just runs hotter or if my aftermarket fan still isn't sitting right. (I knocked it a bit loose when installing the new card and wasn't able to startup, but have since re-situated it.) The GPU temperature is keeping pretty well in line with the CPU (i.e. right now it's mid 30's as I write this).

Any thoughts?

 

[capt_taco]

More heat in general would be expected with a 460 ... but also, if you ended up taking the CPU fan off and re-seating it, it's really a good idea to clean off the thermal paste and re-apply a fresh coat. Otherwise, you can end up with it not making good contact and not conducting heat properly, which makes it harder for the CPU heatsink to do its job.

 

[JonnyDeeWSC]

That's great advice, actually. I will try that this weekend!

I did discover that the CPU fan wasn't seated quite right after I posted--I played around and realized that one of the peg/fasteners hadn't locked into place. Now the CPI temp is back to the low 30s, and only goes up to the 40s during game play.

 

[JonnyDeeWSC]

Best answer selected by JonnyDeeWSC.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey