ginnyfizz Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 Hello tech experts. I had my desktop PC built a couple of years and a little bit more ago and let's be clear, it is fine at the moment with the following specs;- 2 x ATI 4850 1024mb in crossfireAMD Phenom 9850 Quad Core Asus M3A32 Deluxe Mobo4Gb Corsair DDR2 RAMZalman Z1000HP 1000w PSU (replaced a Corsair 650W which couldn't stand the pace, which is why I have been nodding my agreement to Bben46's warnings to everyone else who speaks of upgrading to take a look at their PSU!)1TB Samsung HDD (not sure what model but it is solid and working well) The rig can eat almost every game for breakfast at maximum settings, including Oblivion, Fallout 3 and New Vegas with all the whopping texture packs in, but NOT DX11 games, obviously. I have a monster laptop with a huge screen, ATI 5870 mobility Graphics, 1TB HDD, 8GB RAM, etc, etc that can of course handle DX11, and eats Metro 2033, Crysis et al on max with no problems. But that laptop cost the proverbial arm and a leg. Which is why I am asking my question. Could I potentially upgrade just the video card in my desktop? One thing that I notice when looking at the hardware site where I purchased all my previous parts, is that whereas my MOBO has PCIe 2.0, the DX11 ATI cards are PCIe 2.1. Would this be an issue? Power supply is not going to be a problem. Advice gratefully received, oh kind techxperts! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ziitch Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 What are you looking at? All the cards I've found are PCI-e 2.0, and my GTX 580 was also 2.0... Are you sure it's not just a mixup of numbers between USB and PCI-e? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ginnyfizz Posted January 30, 2011 Author Share Posted January 30, 2011 Just checking out that site, for example;- ATI Radeon HD 6950 The part of the spec that concerns me is Bus Type: PCI-Express 2.1for that card, when my MOBO has PCI_Express 2.0. Looking at that same website though, all the latest Nvidia cards seem to state that the Bus type is PCI-Express 2.0. Does that mean I would need to go Nvidia then? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Illiad86 Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 PCI-E 2.1 cards will work in 2.0 boards. I had my 5770 in a 1.0 board and it worked fine...but I lost a bit of bandwidth (2.0 transfers data at 500MB/s, 1.0 at 250MB/s). But, 2.0 and 2.1 are the same speed, so no loss :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ginnyfizz Posted January 30, 2011 Author Share Posted January 30, 2011 Thanks Iliad, this sounds encouraging! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Illiad86 Posted February 1, 2011 Share Posted February 1, 2011 (edited) :) No problem. PCIe 2.0 motherboard slots are fully backward compatible with PCIe v1.x cards. PCIe 2.0 cards are also generally backward compatible with PCIe 1.x motherboards, using the available bandwidth of PCI Express 1.1. Overall, graphic cards or motherboards designed for v 2.0 will be able to work with the other being v 1.1 or v 1.0. PCI Express 2.1 supports a large proportion of the management, support, and troubleshooting systems planned to be fully implemented in PCI Express 3.0. However, the speed is the same as PCI Express 2.0. Most motherboards sold currently come with PCI Express 2.0 connectors. a little more encouragement :thumbsup: Edited February 1, 2011 by Illiad86 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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