PCI Express Gen 3 video cards in Gen 2 slots?

[PCB Design Guy]

Oops! I posted too soon. It seems that my T7400 could have been configured one of two different ways:

In a configuration without dual graphics and the associated graphics riser card: Your Dell™ computer provides the following slots for PCI and PCI Express cards:

One PCI card slot

One PCI Express x16 card slot

Three PCI Express x8 card slots (wired as x4)

Two PCI-X card slots

In a configuration with dual graphics and the associated graphics riser card: Your Dell™ computer provides the following slots for PCI and PCI Express cards:

Two PCI Express x16 card slots (reserved for dual-graphics cards)

One PCI Express x8 card slot (wired as x4)

Two PCI-X card slots

Until I figure out which slot configuration I have, I think it might be best to let this topic rest.









I do printed circuit board design and I would like to employ a three monitor setup; one monitor for viewing the circuit board being developed which would be intensely graphic including 3D rotation, on the second monitor would likely be a rather static schematic and the third monitor would also be a rather static 'system window' displaying email or perhaps a component data sheet or the like.

I have a several year old Dell Precision T7400 that offers two PCI Express x16 Gen 2 slots for video at 225 watts each.

In researching this I see that the world has moved on to PCI Express 3.

I tired to do my own research but am left feeling less than fully assured that if I buy a pair of dual-video PCI Express 3 video cards they will work in the Gen 2 slots.


I am still on XP owing to a client I have - will I have a problem because of that?

Thank you.

 

[PCB Design Guy]

Thank you for the fast reply.

I have just discovered on-line Dell documentation that indicates the T7400 was supplied in two possible I/O slot configurations. If I indeed have he dual PCI-e slots you have answered my question.

If I have the alternative I/O configuration I will be posting with a revised question.

 

[PCB Design Guy]

I am fairly certain I have two PCI Express 2.0 x 16 slots.

I am contemplating whether to buy two dual video cards or to pool the money for two cards together and purchase a single quad video card. The fourth video port would be for future expansion.

I want four DVI ports as I believe it will give me the same consistent high quality graphics across all displays if I move windows around.

I am thinking of buying the PNY VCQ450NVS-X16-DVI-PB Quadro NVS 450 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16.

I think this PNY gives me four DVI ports on a single width card with no fan noise. It works with XP so that's good.

The specs say "PC compatible with Intel Pentium 4/Xeon or AMD Opteron class processor or higher." My Workstation employs a Intel Xeon E5420 quad-core running at 2.50GHz. Since it is a Xeon processor am I correct in thinking that I would not have a compatibility problem?

I welcome advice and opinions.

Thanks,

 

[cool07ist]

better get a windows 7 64bit version. only then you can take full advantage of those cards running in dx11 other than running in xp with dx9 mode only.

And for your question, there are no differences or any bottlenecking issues connecting a gen 3 card to a pciex16 slot.
FYI, i have a msi hd 7770 and its been installed into pciex16 2.0 slot. So far no problemos' at all!!