Feb 7 2009, 1:08 pm
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Trosh Kubyo
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Looks like it was deleted as soon as I posted it, so I am just going to reply here. I just picked up a P4 3.2ghz system that has a 16X PCI-E slot on it. I need something with more kick then what I'll be getting my girlfriend. Any recs?
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ATI HD 4670 for about $90USD on Newegg. I think that'll go in your slot (I can't remember exactly).
George Gough | |
I've only been able to find cards in PCI-E 2.0 in that category. Is using a 2.0 in a PCI-E X16 going to slow down the card?
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PCI-E 2.0 has twice the bandwidth of its 1.0 counter part. Only video cards that need more bandwidth than PCI-E 1.0 can provide would be bottlenecked, but it would need to be a really good card to max out 1.0 I believe most available cards can't do this right now. DDR 3 video cards been out before PCI-E 2.0 so I don't know what Spunky_Girl is talking about, there is already DDR5 video cards on the market.
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Soldierman wrote:
DDR 3 video cards been out before PCI-E 2.0 so I don't know what Spunky_Girl is talking about, there is already DDR5 video cards on the market. Really? She was making the perfect analogy--the lower-standard bus bottlenecks higher-standard cards. | |
Just let him live in his delusion :) When he encounters this problem, he'll come crawling back to this thread ^-^
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CaptFalcon33035 wrote:
Soldierman wrote: Memory on the card vs the motherboard does not matter in any sort of way. The only limitation is that pci-e v1 is slower by half than pci-e v2. (DDR3 Ram on the mobo is different from DDR3 on the graphics card anyway) That said, I can't find any throughput numbers for graphics cards, so I don't know how much, for example, a gtx280 would be throttled on a v1 pci-e slot, if at all... I'll have to research more and get back to you. [edit] Ahh, check out this article: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ pci-express-2-0,1915-13.html | |
CaptFalcon33035 wrote:
Soldierman wrote: The point is DDR3 video cards where around when AGP was the fastest and where available when PCI-E was first released, so how could they all need PCI-E 2.0 to run at full speed. Like Jerico2day said it is not about DDR type it is about bandwidth. If you can afford to buy a GTX280 than you can afford to buy a new motherboard to be safe. If you are just looking to buy something like a dual core GeForce 9800 GX2 according to these benchmarks you should be fine. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ pci-express-2-0,1915-10.html A x8 PCI-E 2.0 slot is the same speed as a 16x PCI-E 1.0 slot. | |
Soldierman wrote:
The point is DDR3 video cards where around when AGP was the fastest and where available when PCI-E was first released, so how could they all need PCI-E 2.0 to run at full speed. Like Jerico2day said it is not about DDR type it is about bandwidth. Read: ANALOGY. He was asking if a higher-end card used in a lower-end bus would not use the card to its full potential. The answer to that is "DUH!" The card has to operate at a slower speed because it cannot transfer data as fast as possible. The analogy was just fine. | |
CaptFalcon33035 wrote:
Read: ANALOGY. Actually the answer is basically YES most(if not all) cards available that say they are PCI-E 2.0 will work to there full potential in PCI-E 1.0. Unless your buying 400 dollar video card there won't be more than a trival difference(maybe a few frames). GeForce 9800 GX2 is one of the higher end cards available and you can actually READ the Tomshardware article and see that there won't be that much of a difference. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ pci-express-2-0,1915-10.html A 8x PCI-E 2.0 slot runs at the same speed as a 16x PCI-E 1.0 slot,so as you can in the benchmarks there is really LITTLE difference in 8x vs a 16x slot or a 4x slot for that matter, which is half the speed of PCI-E 1.0. Secondly, "If you use a DDR3 video card in a DDR2 slot, it will get bottle-necked down to DDR2 speed". Sounds like a direct statement to me not analogy. | |
Soldierman wrote:
Actually the answer is basically YES most(if not all) cards available that say they are PCI-E 2.0 will work to there full potential in PCI-E 1.0. Unless... Exactly. Point is, if the bus can't handle the speed, the card will operate at a slower rate. Secondly, "If you use a DDR3 video card in a DDR2 slot, it will get bottle-necked down to DDR2 speed". Sounds like a direct statement to me not analogy. Did you even read what post it was in response to? "I've only been able to find cards in PCI-E 2.0 in that category. Is using a 2.0 in a PCI-E X16 going to slow down the card?" | |
Well I recently found out the P4 tower that I got has a 340 watt PSU on it. I have no idea WHY they decided to go with such a odd number, but there you go.
The video card I want to get for my system apperently has a req. of 350 watts, is 10 watts really going to make that big of a difference? The most annoying thing with NewEgg and tiger direct is the fact they don't have a search option to search for video cards that require a defined amount of wattage for the video card. So if any of you have a suggestion for a PCI-E 16X 1.0 video card that is 512MB or higher and falls under the <300 wattage category and is a decent game card, let me know, because I'll be buying the parts in the next day or so. By the way, thanks for all the help. | |
Another thing that is bugging me is NewEgg doesn't always have a system reqs. for video cards and while TigerDirect is really good about that, some of the cards I am looking at on NewEgg are not avaible on TigerDirect. If I don't see a system req. would it be a good bet that my 340 watt PSU could handle it? Namely something like this..?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161203 | |
http://ati.amd.com/products/radeonhd2600/radeonhd2600xt/ specs.html
ATI has specs on there site. They might not be that accurate but neither are any other sites that state there recommended wattage. They don't know what kind of computer you have, so how can they really know how much wattage you will need. That is why Newegg does not list it I bet. I guess they could list how much just the card will draw, but that would not help most people. | |
Well in the end I decided to get two more lower end cards, for the time being until am I ready to do a lot more research into what the computers will run..
I got this for my P4 3.2GHZ system: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150245 I know it isn't the most high end video card, but people were saying they were able to pull of playable versions of Fallout 3 and BioShock on it and thats good enough for me, even if I have to play on low settings. I got this for my girlfriends AMD 64 2X 2.4GHZ Acer: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814162027 I got this one for her system because of the small size (her case is like a micro ATX mid tower) and because of the lower power requirments (her PSU is 240 watts). People have said it can still bump up gaming graphics, besides, all she plays is World of Warcraft and anything has got to be better then the factory installed shared video ram card she has right now. As long as she dosen't lag in NorthRend I am fine. It was the video card or the ram, and I decided that the GPU was more important. | |
I play Fallout 3 on medium setting and my computer has these specs.
2.0ghz AMD 64X2 2GB ddr 400 XFX 8600GT It can get laggy at times, but you probably will be able to play decently. | |
OK guys this is the last your going to hear from me on this thread. If you are looking for some low end, cheap video cards, these would do.
On my P4 system I am pretty much running anything right now on medium to high settings. The only current bottle neck in my system is the CPU which prevents me from playing some of the more high end games. Fallout 3 runs fantastic on medium. So does BioShock and many others. On my girlfriend's PC I am suprised at how well her low profile card is doing. She is getting a solid 30-40 FPS anywhere in World of Warcraft, she isn't getting nearly as much bad lag as she was in the past. Not only that, but this little video card is allowing her to play Assassin's Creed. I wasn't expecting that, but it sure is a nice surpise. | |