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Started by bojake | | 2 answers
PCIE 3.0 x16 vs PCIE x16
I do not understand the differences between pcie 3.0 x16 and pcie x16. I want to get a good video card for the PC that I am building but my problem is this. I am choosing a motherboard that only has pcie x16. The problem with this is the video cards that I can find for pcie x16 seem to be very cheap. Now if I change it up and go with a motherboard that has pcie 3.0 x16 then it changes the socket interface for the processor to FM2+ from AM3+ making it impossible to find a 6 or 8 core processor. Plz help me i don't know what to do. Basically i want a good processor AMD and a good video card.
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a b U Graphics card
a b V Motherboard
September 7, 2014 1:22:56 PM

1. PCIe x16 3.0 cards are more advanced but they will work on any PCIe x 16 socket.
2. Make the Motherboard with PCIe x16 either 3.0 or 2.0. More advanced motherboards (FM2+ is more advanced than AM3+) have PCIe x16 3.0 but any with 2.0 will work just as good with a 3.0 video card.
3. There are some AMD AM3+ motherboards with PCIe x16 3.0 for a higher price tag.

SABERTOOTH 990FX/GEN3 R2.0 (AM3+ with 3.0 PCIe x16)
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/SABERTOOTH_990FXGEN3_R...
http://www.newegg.com/global/au/Product/ProductList.asp...

Help Finding A Motherboard (AM3+, PCI-e 3.0)
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1768549/finding-...



a b U Graphics card
a c 94 V Motherboard
September 7, 2014 12:36:23 PM

There is not too much of a performance difference between PCIE 1.0 x16 and 3.0 x16... 3.0 may have three times the bandwidth per lane but few GPUs and games push graphics hard enough for this to be a major issue yet.

PCIE is backward-compatible so, apart from occasional odd compatibility issues, just about any PCIE GPU will work on any PCIE motherboard regardless of PCIE version - the endpoints will simply negotiate for the slowest speed of the two.

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