Radeon HD 5770 compatible with?

My 8800gt is consistently running btw 95-105 celcius. I've already taken it apart, cleaned and added AS5, but without much effect, except the fan runs quieter now. So - I plan on building my new rig when Battlefield 3 comes out, but I want to get a gpu now, that I can SLI later on. I will probably be building with the new SB ~2500k. I'm most likely getting the Radeon HD 5770, based on TH article, but I don't know it is compatible with my current setup. Sorry, but I'm still using XP and DX9. I want to know how the new gpus work with the different PCI connections. Is 2.1 compatible with 2.0, 1.0 1.0 X16. I don't know the difference. My mobo right now is (Motherboard Name DFI LANParty DK P35-T2 / P35-T2R/S). Everest also says it has (Expansion Slots 3 PCI, 2 PCI-E x1, 1 PCI-E x16). Will this card work in this mobo. My new rig will use Win7 64, I guess DX11. Any info would be appreciated.

~seriousturtle

As far as I'm aware PCI-e 2.1 is backwards compatible so a HD5770 should work fine in your current PC, Oh and a HD5770 is an ATI/AMD product so it would be Crossfire and not SLI (nVidia). Just install the HD5770 into the PCI-E x16 Lane.

Could you list your full system spec's?

as long as your CPU doesn't bottleneck your HD5770 then you will see a substantial performance boost in all the games you play.

Seems fine to me, you should see a large performance gain

Make sure you uninstall all nvidia drivers, I'd recommend using a program called driver sweeper to make sure all nVidia software is removed.

Why let reason and logic stand in the way of your PC hardware purchases? (Seriously don't follow my logic)

Anyway the HD5870 is twice as fast as a HD5770, but your current CPU will likely bottleneck it in CPU intensive games.
The HD6850 is about 15-20% slower than a HD5870, but obviously cheaper.

What power supply make and model do you have?

Yeah a HD5870 isn't a bad purchase now as you could carry it over to your new build, and there quite cheap now. Never heard of Nspire before, I personally wouldn't trust a PSU brand I've never heard of before, I'd always recommend going with a quality brand like Corsair, Antec, Enermax ETC....

The PSU should have a sticker on it somewhere, and on that sticker it should tell you the max wattage output for the combined +12V rails, could you tell us that info?

Thats the maximum possible amperage (A) that each rail is capable of outputting, what we need is the maximum combined wattage of the +12V rails.

It also shows the 3.3v and 5v rails as = 30A, just like 12v3&4 if that matters

So would you recommend a 5870 to future proof myself as long as possible, or save $50 and get the 6850?

K, if my wife asks, I'll say an IT guy said it was my only hope of saving my pc.

I told my wife, "honey, it's pretty normal for a GPU to burn through the thermal compound. We really got our money's worth". Kind of works.

Thanks again. Hope you're right