Abit IP35 Pro question...

[TonCrafter]

I'm looking to upgrade my video card from my current 7900GTX to an ATI HD5850. I know it's a PCI Express 2.1 card. My question, and Im sure you've heard this before...will it work in my mobo? I'm pretty sure it's only 1.1. Some say it will work fine, but others say it won't.

I've been out of the loop on pc building for quite a while recently. Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[coolguy]

I'm looking to upgrade my video card from my current 7900GTX to an ATI HD5850. I know it's a PCI Express 2.1 card. My question, and Im sure you've heard this before...will it work in my mobo? I'm pretty sure it's only 1.1. Some say it will work fine, but others say it won't.

I've been out of the loop on pc building for quite a while recently. Any help would be much appreciated.

They are all compatible, a PCIE 1.1 (and 2.1) video card would work in a PCIE 2.0 slot and a PCIE 2.1 video card can work with a PCIE 1.1 slot. But I believe there will be some bottlenecking since PCIE 2.0 is supposedly twice as fast as PCIE 1.1.

Edit : Forgot to say that there are also some 2.0 cards that do not work well in a 1.0 port, all in all I wouldn't take the risk and I would upgrade the motherboard if possible.

 

[TonCrafter]

They are all compatible, a PCIE 1.1 (and 2.1) video card would work in a PCIE 2.0 slot and a PCIE 2.1 video card can work with a PCIE 1.1 slot. But I believe there will be some bottlenecking since PCIE 2.0 is supposedly twice as fast as PCIE 1.1.

Edit : Forgot to say that there are also some 2.0 cards that do not work well in a 1.0 port, all in all I wouldn't take the risk and I would upgrade the motherboard if possible.

Thanks for the help on this. Much appreciated. I plan on building a new rig completely, but wanted to get a new gpu now so I could get some "early" enjoyment out of it.....as best as possible anyway. lol

 

[Slaymate]

your mobo should run a 5850 just fine.

 

[Trotter]

Even though the 2.0 is "theoretically" twice as fast as the 1.0 there are no cards on the market that can completely saturate even a 1.0 slot. You will have no problems with the card. The only limiting factor may be your CPU.

 

[TonCrafter]

Thanks for all the input, everyone. I've been further looking into cards and have been getting interested in the GTX460 as well. Good to know my old mobo can still live a little.

 

[coolguy]

Thanks for all the input, everyone. I've been further looking into cards and have been getting interested in the GTX460 as well. Good to know my old mobo can still live a little.

Good Luck picking your graphics card and from what I have seen so far the gtx 460 is an amazing card and the 1 gb version can actually run in par with a 5850 if overclocked. Awesome P/P ratio. Also I heard the gtx 455 along with nvidias gtx 490 which is a dual core gpu are supposed to be released this month. Theres also a big chance ATi might lower the prices for all of its cards this month as well, lots of enjoyable things happening this month.

 

[Trotter]

They dropped the price of the 5830 to match the 460 already.

 

[coolguy]

They dropped the price of the 5830 to match the 460 already.

Wow, I didn't even see that o-o thats weird. I hope they lower prices more when the new nvidia cards come out (depending on there performance).

 

[TonCrafter]

Well, went ahead and sprung for a GTX460 1GB earlier today. Should have it by Friday I'd guess. It's stock speeds, but I'll OC it some when I get it. Hope it works out well!