2x PCIe 2.0 GPU in PCIe 3.0 and 2.0 ports

[oshirowanen]

Hello,

I'm thinking about getting the following motherboard:

Gigabyte B75M-D3V S1155 Intel B75 DDR3 ATX

Apparently, this motherboard has the following ports which I have a question about:

1 x PCI Express 3.0 x16 ( 22 nm processor must be installed ),
1 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 ( x4 mode ),
3 x PCI Express 2.0 x1,
2 x PCI

On this motherboard, I am planning on getting the following CPU and GPUs:

CPU: 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i3 2120 3.3GHz Socket LGA1155
GPU: 2x Novatech GeForce GT 520 1024MB GDDR3

That CPU seems to have a 32 nm architechture and both GPUs seem to be PCI Express 2.0 x16 GPUs.

So will I be able to use this CPU and those GPUs with the above botherboard if 1 of the GPUs is plugged into the PCI Express 3.0 port and the second GPU is plugged into the PCI Express 2.0 port?

 

[oshirowanen]

This config is not a gaming machine, it's to have lag free 4 monitors for a development machine. I've tried using the usb2vga converts for extra monitors but they are too laggy to be productive with.

 

[blazorthon]

PCIe is forwards and backwards compatible. PCIe 3.0 motherboards just run at PCIe 2.0 with a PCIe 2.0 CPU and graphics card. Also, have you tried a USB 3.0 monitor (on a USB 3.0 port)? If you only tried USB 2.0 versions, then that explains the lag. I'm not sure if a 3.0 monitor will also lag, but it should be a helluva lot better at the very least. As for those video cards, if 512MB versions are significantly cheaper than the 1024MB versions, then I recommend them, unless you know that you need 1024MB cards.

Also, it's video cards that you're talking about (aka graphics cards), not GPUs. A GPU is a chip on a graphics card, not the entire graphics card it-self. I'm not nit-picky about a lot of things, but I am about this. Calling a graphics card a GPU is like calling a computer a CPU.

 

[oshirowanen]

Point taken. Thanks.

 

[blazorthon]

Yeah. Sorry about that, it's just that calling them a GPU can lead to some pretty confusing explanations later on, especially if someone who doesn't understand this tries to look up information after reading it referred to as a GPU.