Quick question about PCIe I've been looking at buying a GTX460, but I was told there could be some issue as my MB only has PCIe v1 slots. I understand there is more than one version, providing more capacity, but all they're all compatible with each other, so there could be some throttling. From the wikipedia page, it shows that the capacity for PCIe v1.x is 4GB/s (40GT/s) on a 16-lane slot. Looking for specifications on the GTX460, I was again on the wikipedia page for it and didn't know which column was relevant. If someone can point me in the right direction, I would be very appreciative. Many Thanks Nick
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GTX_480_PCI-Express_Scaling/25.html Have a read up of that. I think you'll be fine though. You might lose a few FPS but I dont think ti will be significant so long as its in an x16 slot.
What motherboard do you have? Generally speaking it should work as the PCI-E v2 cards are backwards compatible with the v1 slot.
Different PCI-E versions work fine together. They will default to the speed of the older version, in your case PCI-E v1 speeds.
Which in real terms what you'll see on the screen will be minimal as the bandwidth likely exceeds the cards bandwidth?
I wouldn't be worried about the motherboard as the performance differences are small between PCIE revisions (with lower end cards as well as higher end). The question I'd be asking is: what processor do you have? It may massively bottleneck the GPU, even though it's a mid-range GPU.
I have a 670 (more than twice as powerful as a 460) in a PCIe 2x slot, which can provide 20% less than double of what a 1.1 slot can provide and using Riva statistics server I monitor in game how much bandwidth is used. It rarely goes above 50% in my case.
I've got a q6600, would that be a bottleneck? Glad to hear that I won't be taking a huge performance hit from my MB. Thanks a lot
the Q6600 although slower than more modern CPU's can still hold it's own if you overclock it. If you could tell us which motherboard you have we might be able to tell you how overclockable it is. Generally Q6600's are very overclockable but the motherboard may not be built to withstand higher speeds.
Actually Deders I've read (but cant remember where dammit) that a core 2 quad and DDR2 memory would bottleneck a high end GPU - even if overclocked. Especially with games that are CPU Intensive like BF4 when played online. I should list a source I know, so what I'll say is read up on this first. The example I read included a GTX 670 which was hugely bottlenecked by someone speaking from experience by their old C2Q.
I have an ASUS P5QL/EPU motherboard, and the RAM is budget Crucial 667MHz RAM, so nothing special. Wouldn't really know how to go about overclocking the CPU, a lot of the guide I can find seem to be tailored towards better MBs and faster RAM.
It says in the MB specs that you have a PCIe2.0 slot on the board. Unless the link you posted is wrong.
Where are you seeing that? I can't see it on the Specs page. Under Expansion slots it says: 1 x PCIe x16 2 x PCIe x1 3 x PCI are these not all version 1?
It says it has pcie v2.0 Regardless, even if it was a v1.0 slot it would be fine, and your Q6600 will be fine with the 460, as others have said, you can overclock it for a bit of extra performance if you feel you need it.
I am such an idiot! Cheers guys. Does anyone know a good source for overclocking guides? Something that explains everything that's going on, because I don't really know the theory behind it. Cheers
Agreed with all of the above. A GTX 460 shouldn't be bottlenecked by a Q6600, at all. That motherboard is one which my friend has in his system and you should be able to squeeze 333FSB out of the board and chip. That'll get your CPU running at 3GHz and it should be doable on stock voltage. If not, it may require a slight NB voltage bump as well as a slight CPU voltage bump at best.
Bit-tech did one a while back: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2007/07/25/overclocking_intel_core_2_quad_q6600/1 Just have a google for overclocking to get some basic concepts/ideas etc, then ask here for specifics
