Radeon HD 5850 in a PCI-e 1.0 slot, Final Answer?

[TommyBoy84]

I've read a slew of varying stories on this issue.

Will a Radeon HD 5850 (PCI-e 2.0) work in a PCI-e 1.0 slot? I've read some posts that say "yes, but you'll lose a few percentage points of performance due to bandwidth constrants". Others have flat out said "the 5850 is incompatible with PCI-e 1.0".

Some have even gone so far as to say Radeon HD 5xxx and 6xxx cards are PCI-e 2.0 only, or that they'll work in PCI-e 1.1 but not 1.0, while others say they work just fine.

What is the final verdict on this question?

I'll be upgrading a Radeon HD 4350 within the next couple weeks, and I need to know if I can get an upper mid-level or upper tier card like the 5850, or if I'll have to look at older cards like the Radeon HD 2xxx or GeForce 8xxx series. My motherboard only has PCI-e 1.0 x16.

Thank you for any insights!

 

[jaguarskx]

Yep. I have a HD 5850 PCIe 2.0 card working in a PCI-e 1.0 slot.

 

[amdfangirl]

It will work.

You have my word.

It won't be as fast tho, it bottleneck a bit, bit not enough to worry about. Don't worry, it will still blow away the HD 4350. Honest!

 

[VGKitov]

From what I know there are some issues between PCI-E 1.0 and PCI-E 2.1, but since the 5850 is PCI-E 2.0 it should work.

Totaly agree with amdfangirl, there should not be a noticable diffrence.

 

[TommyBoy84]

Best answer selected by TommyBoy84.

 

[yesitsmario]

What CPU do you have? Can you list the system specs? Besides the pci 1.0, there could be a cpu bottleneck.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey