Upgrading my graphics card, but it's only a PCI-e v1.0

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Dhakos

Posts: 79   +0
Hello

I recently made the decision that I want to upgrade my graphics card because I'm tired of "meeting the reccomended settings" then jumping into the game to find I have to turn things near to minimum most of the time, medium if I'm lucky.

Anyway, I currently have an Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT, and after a lot of research I decided I wanted to get the Nvidia GTX 460 as my upgrade, though after I set my mind on it I noticed in a comparison, my old card is PCI-e v1.0, and the GTX 460 is v2.0.

My question is, how much reduced performance will I be getting from using the GTX in my system? would it be so much so that I'd be better off getting a 1.0 card?

Also, if I put the GTX 460 in at the same time as the 8600 GT (I have two PCI-e v1.0 slots) would I gain any performance from that being that I can't SLI them? (my mobo does support SLI though, so would getting another 8600 GT and running them in SLI be a better solution overall?)

I was hoping to run the new Sonic Generations game (with good performance), but can anyone help me with upgrading my graphics card please?
 
Hi Dhakos,
PCIE v1.0 and v2.0 are backward/forward compatible. the 460 does not use all of a v1.0 bandwidth so you are okay there. as far as SLI'ing te two cards, the cards must be same gen, same core etc for sli to function. so the 8600Gt and the GT460 will not sli. you can use your 8600 for physX however. The 460 is going to give you better performance than will 2 x 8600, not to mention DX11 capability.
 
Right ok so it's definitely worth going for the GTX 460 then, that's peace of mind right there :) I dont know much about Physx, but anything I can offload to the other card is a plus ;)

The GTX 460 is the recommended card for Sonic Generations, and I've seen videos on youtube of people running the game with that card on max at 1920x1200, but ofc they'll have 2.0, will I still be able to run the game pretty damn well? or will the performance loss not even be noticable compared to a 2.0?

Many Thanks :)
 
The GTX 460 is the recommended card for Sonic Generations, and I've seen videos on youtube of people running the game with that card on max at 1920x1200, but ofc they'll have 2.0, will I still be able to run the game pretty damn well? or will the performance loss not even be noticable compared to a 2.0?
Click to expand...

Nope, there will be no difference. the PCIE is a high speed bus. the only concern here would be is data transfer capacities (seen below) the 460 does not come close to utilizing or saturating thye 1.0/1.1 spec, so you're good. PCIE 3.0 is reporting that there will be some increased speed for prior gen devices due to reduced latencies, but thats another story.If you meant as far as quality reduction, then no. You will not see anything different.

...somewhere in there was your answer ;)

v1.x: 250 MB/s (2.5 GT/s)
v2.x: 500 MB/s (5 GT/s)
v3.0: 1 GB/s (8 GT/s)
 
Ahh brilliant, thank you so much, that's great to hear, can't wait to get it now :)

If you don't mind me asking (just so I can learn more) where did you find out the data transfer speed of the card and the port? I've read the memory bandwidth of the GTX 460 is 115.2 GB/sec, is that the right number I should be looking for? and whats the (higher) bandwidth of the port?
 
I was leaning that way too, been reading some reviews/watching videos, ok, brilliant, consider it ordered, thanks again :)
 
Mizzou said:
I would recommend going with the EVGA, much better support than Gigabyte.
Click to expand...


...oh I don't know about that...:rolleyes: order the EVGA!:haha:

hey P I am going to send you the letter I just sent to GB management USA and tiawan, i think you will get a kick out of it.
 
red1776 said:
...oh I don't know about that...:rolleyes: order the EVGA!:haha:

hey P I am going to send you the letter I just sent to GB management USA and tiawan, i think you will get a kick out of it.
Click to expand...

I'll be looking forward to reading that :)
 
Hey everyone, out of interest, how do I know that my new graphics card isn't too much for my PSU? my old card had a max power draw of 43W, new one has a max of 160W, my PSU is a 400W, but taking into account all the other components of my system, how do I know it can handle it?
 
That site requires a lot of hardware knowledge, seems to easy to get wrong, is there a simpler way? also, what happens if I keep using the card without worrying about power, whats the worst that could happen/how will I know that it's load it too much?
 
Well, after putting in all I could, except my 4USB hub PCI card and a tv PCI card, because I didnt know what they were, it came up with 391W at 90% load like they recommended, however if everything in my computer ran at 100% I'd be looking at 429W, my PSU is a 400W, will I need to upgrade to a 500W PSU pretty soon...?
 
Computers rarely get to 100% load unless artificially stressed, if your power supply is not supplying enough power it could cause crashes when there is heavy usage, it could also possibly damage you power supply but more likely it overloads and everything switches off. i wouldn't worry about the PCI cards for the power calculation and you will possibly be fine with the old 400W, however it probably would be smart to consider upgrading your power supply in order to protect your investment. Try to find one with the two six pin connectors for the 460 as well as a reputable brand, like the Antec NEO ECO 520C that is reccomended for the entry level rig < https://www.techspot.com/guides/buying/page3.html >
 
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