Asus p5q (Intel q45 chipset) motherboard graphics card compatibility?

[d0hboy]

Hi guys, I have an old asus p5q Em do mAtx motherboard paired with a core 2quad q6700 CPU , 8gb ddr2 ram. Yes it's aging, but I notice it has a PCI-e slot for a possible graphics card. wanted to check whether it's even possible to put one if the newer graphics cards in this thing (ie. Ati r7 or similar). I would have access to a 450w or 500w corsair psu. Any thoughts?

Mind you I'm very willing and itching to upgrade the motherboard / CPU/ ram however. This CPU motherboard combo, while serving me well for db virtual machine duty, has probably run its course.

 

[Seba]

You can put any PCI Express graphics card in the PCI Express 16x slot from your motherboard (blue slot). Most graphics card worth buying are dual-slot, so they will cover the next slot bellow (the small PCI Express 1x white slot, next to the CR2032 battery in the case of your motherboard).

Even if you might be a little CPU limited, I would recommend to buy at least an R7 260X/HD 7790 (from AMD) or GTX 650 Ti Boost (from Nvidia). The improvements over your integrated graphics will be huge for games (if games are the purpose of this upgrade).

The chipset is G45, not Q45 (I assume it was a typo).

 

[Insert_Nickname]

What to recommend really depends on how much you're willing to spend on this old system and of course what you're using it for.

For gaming I agree with seba's post, a HD7790/R7-260X or GT650ti. Perhaps even one of the brand new 750/750ti, that'd save the 6-pin connector requirement plus you can carry it into a new build. That should set you up nicely for the foreseeable future. You might be a bit CPU limited, but that Q6700 should have a year or two left in it. Especially with a little cautious OC.

If you just want some modern features (f.x. video acceleration, DX11, OpenCL etc.) I'd recommend a simple R7-240 or GT640. They're not really fast enough for gaming, but it gives you every modern feature you can think of, and is a very worthy upgrade if you're coming from the ancient GMA 4500 of the Q45 chipset. (Doesn't even support HD video acceleration... )

 

[d0hboy]

You can put any PCI Express graphics card in the PCI Express 16x slot from your motherboard (blue slot). Most graphics card worth buying are dual-slot, so they will cover the next slot bellow (the small PCI Express 1x white slot, next to the CR2032 battery in the case of your motherboard).

I appreciate the clarification on the blue / white slot..wasn't sure of the difference. that's a good simple tip.

RE: 6-pin connector requirement, I got one of those 4-pin->6-pin MOLEX adapters and tried it out -- seems to work fine, although I'm aware of the potential power stability issues if I load too much on one of the rails.

I just realized that my board (even with the 16x PCI-e slot) is only rated at PCIe 2.0 x16, while many newer cards support PCIe 3.0 (for sample, a nvidia GTX 660 Ti). Would that mean the mobo is not compatible, or is it like DDR3 RAM where it'll just just a bit slower than optimal?

The chipset is G45, not Q45 (I assume it was a typo).

I actually have the P5Q-EM DO (not the P5Q-EM) , which appears to be listed under Asus website , newEgg and a cNet review as a Q45 chipset -- that's all I'm going by. either way, i totally appreciate the input , both Seba & Insert_Nickname.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

About the adaptor, so long that you keep in mind how much power your 12V rail(s) can put out, there should be no problems. Absolute worst case we're talking 150W (75W from PCIe slot and 75W from 6-pin connector), any half decent PSU from the last 10 years should handle that.

The only issue you could stumble into is that your PSU is designed to put most of its output on the 3.3V and 5V rails, and therefore has a weak 12V rail. Modern boards (P4 and newer) pull most of their power from the 12V rail, so I think that's very unlikely for a newer system like yours.

I just realized that my board (even with the 16x PCI-e slot) is only rated at PCIe 2.0 x16, while many newer cards support PCIe 3.0 (for sample, a nvidia GTX 660 Ti). Would that mean the mobo is not compatible, or is it like DDR3 RAM where it'll just just a bit slower than optimal?

Yes, PCIe is fully backwards and forwards compatible. If f.x. you plug-in a PCIe 3.0 card in a 1.0 slot, it just operates at the lowest common denominator. In this case PCIe 1.0.

The only place PCIe speed really matter is for GPU compute. For gaming, most tests show a difference between 16x PCIe 2.0 and 3.0 is ~1-2% maximum, in most cases performance is identical. So its very unlikely to be an issue, and even if it is its negligible.



Edit; hit the wrong botton...

 

[nicuwork]

i own a q6600 g0 OC to 3.4ghz and when i tested with gtx660 i could run BF4 on ultra with 45-55 fps on ultra details, resolution 1920x1080, campaign.

Old chipsets are not old at all, they can easily keep up with modern software and games.

For games the most important is the graphic card, maybe 2-3 time more important than the processor. A quad core is still and will be good for games since new games use 4 cores.

 

[Seba]

I actually have the P5Q-EM DO (not the P5Q-EM) , which appears to be listed under Asus website , newEgg and a cNet review as a Q45 chipset -- that's all I'm going by.

I missed the "DO" suffix in your first post. Both Asus P5Q-EM and ASUS P5Q-EM DO have the same placement (and same colour) of PCI Express and PCI slots.

 

[coolpurplefan]

For what it's worth, I have a slightly different motherboard, the Asus P5Q and a GT 640 (along with E8500 CPU and G.Skill 2GB RAM). It works really well for HD video and old games like Battlefield 2 and Unreal Tournament 3.

The fan on my MSI GT 640 is too noisy though. Although there are other brands that sell the GT 640. If you want a card for more recent games however the 750 and 750 Ti just came out. There's also the GTX 650 Ti and 650.