hello. it has been a while since i have updated my pc hardware and with god coming i want to improve it. atm i am focused only on video card improvement since i don't have the money for whole system change. my current system is: cpu: dualcore amd athlon 64 x2, 2900 mhz (14.5 x 200) 5600+ motherboard: biostar a740g m2+ (2 pci, 1 pci-e x1, 1 pci-e x16, 4 ddr2 dimm, audio, video, lan) ram: 4096 mb (ddr2-800 ddr2 sdram) video: radeon x1650 series (256 mb) my motherboard supports pci-e x16 v1.0. i read that all new cards are ok with this and can run w/o problems. the thing is that pic-e 2.1 and so on have twice the speed of v.1.0 but what i can't understand is which graphic cards can max v1.0 and v.2.1 bandwidths. i would be thankful if there is someone who can explain which cards support (use max) these bandwidths. also, i read that gddr5 128bus = gddr3 256bus. does that have to do sth with the pci-e v.1.0 and for whichof the two should i look for when i chooce a graphic card. my budget is arround $150. if you have any suggestions don't be shy to help me choosing
the pci-e is just the bus from which data passes by - the card has the same power. if you have a pci-e 1.0 motherboard only then they'll perfectly work. unsure about the differences between 1.0 and 2.0 tho - and if you're upgrading for l2 the gpu won't help alot. imo just check the gpu benchmarks and compare them (that's how i do it). http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html
oh man i lol`d so hard with that graphic for those who dont remeber videocardbench was the only site that putted 9800gtx +40% faster than the 8800 nuff said about them go check in guru3d and i suggest you change your mobo to something stable like gigabyta gama770ud3
hey there, i just updated my gfx card to an ati radeon 6870 (xfx dual fan edition) i can confirm that a new pci-express 2.1 card, will work fine on your motherboard at standard x16. the fps rates are only around 10% (max) lower which you wont notice on a decent card. (the difference between 2.0 and 2.1 is only about 1-2 fps) the problem i had with mine was it didn't seem to run quick enough, low fps in all games around 30-40 (im only running standard x16 1.0 also). luckily for me i decided to upgrade my cpu a few days ago, this unlocked a whole bunch of things on my board such as cpu-pci bus and a whole bunch of other things. basically my windows rating went up on everything apart from hdd. this basically unlocked the potential of my gfx card. (now 100+ fps in all games) my old cpu was holding me back. it was a dualcore amd athlon 64 x2 3gig, 6000+ (i thought this was good, but its so basic compared to new cpu's) with amd systems now, everything seems to work in sync with the cpu, overclock your cpu, and your memory and pci-express will get a boost too! basically long complicated story short, if your going to update your gpu, you will also need a new cpu, the athlon range just doesn't cut it, athlon ii and phenom ii will. i got a phenom ii x4 960t 3gig black edition (unlocked to a x6 with bios settings) for only â£94.98 and my gfx card cost me â£144. all in all i love my system now and it saves me from updating my motherboard at the moment. with regards to memory on the gfx card... go for gddr5, if your going to upgrade, you might as well upgrade to something good. that way any future purchases will also benefit from it. when your pick a gfx card, make sure your power supply can support it!!! i've made this mistake twice in the past, and had to purchase new power supplies at the same time. i recommend a 500w+ one, for cards around your budget. but i could be wrong, so do your research. hope i've covered a few things here.
thanks for all replies. i decided to w8 a bit more and go for full upgr. i am satisfied by performance at the pts. will w8 to see what's the matter with sieges and decide from then what would i do.
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