Mobo gen 3.0

[furry87]

I was wondering if my sapphire radeon hd 6870 would run faster in the pci-e 3.0 slot on the MSI Z68A-G43 Motherboard, or will there be no difference whats so ever.

 

[DJDeCiBeL]

No difference. You'd need an Ivy CPU for the slot to even BE 3.0 though. PCIe 3.0 doesn't even really matter for single PCIe 3.0 card setups either. Still no difference.

 

[furry87]

But can i still use that slot for my gpu or not?
MSI state:
• 2X bandwidth
• Increased efficiency and compatibility
• Extreme performance for current and next gen PCI Express cards

So that would be false advertisement for the 3.0 slot.

 

[DJDeCiBeL]

Of course you can use it (it's not REALLY 3.0 anyway without an Ivy CPU, but even if it was, it would still work perfectly). And it's capable of PCIe 3.0 with an Ivy CPU, BUT, it's not even worth worrying about. PCIe 3.0 only matters when you go Tri and Quad SLI/CF, and even then, it's not much of a difference. PCIe 3.0 is just window dressing for now and will be for a while.

 

[furry87]

So i have been trying to get my head around 2 differnet i5 processors, i will be getting one by the end of the month, but which one is gonna be futureproof.

Sandybridge i5 2500k unlocked.
Ivybridge 3570k.

which one is gonna be best for this motherboard and my sapphire 6870 which i will be getting another to crossfire.

 

[DJDeCiBeL]

Well, with that mobo, you'll HAVE to get the 2500K, unless you have another Sandy CPU laying around to flash the BIOS with because the 3570K won't work without a BIOS update on Z68 boards.

If you want to go with the 3570K, I'd suggest a Z77 board that will work with it straight out of the box.

As far as which CPU is more "future proof" they'll both last as long you as long as you need them to (they'll both be struggling a bit in 4-5 years), but the 3570K is slightly faster (5-10%) so that's the one I'd go with, with a Z77 board.