how much does PCIe 2.0 matter vs 1.0?

[minmaster]

ok i'm considering this system, but it comes with a motherboard with only PCIe 1.0. how much of real world difference is there especially gaming when running a video card in a 1.0 slot vs the 2.0 slot? i know theoretically the bandwidth is increased by quite a bit, but does it even get saturated in real world applications?

 

[mhouck]

what system?

Tom's Hardware Article on Pci- E 2.0

Read the conclusion and go back over their charts if you need more analysis. Keep in mind this article is over 4 months old and there have been major new card releases from both companies in the meantime.

Go with the 2.0 for the better upgrade path.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Originally posted by: minmaster
ok i'm considering this system, but it comes with a motherboard with only PCIe 1.0. how much of real world difference is there especially gaming when running a video card in a 1.0 slot vs the 2.0 slot? i know theoretically the bandwidth is increased by quite a bit, but does it even get saturated in real world applications?

I believe what you're asking is, will PCIe 1.0 be a bottleneck in the foreseeable future? The answer is no. In terms of bandwidth, current and future (within the next several years) GPU's and CPU's will bottleneck way before the PCIe 1.0 bus.

IMO, you can read Tom's Hardware for comedy relief but get your facts elsewhere.

 

[minmaster]

well to its credit, all the charts at tom's showed pretty much what magnus was saying. the weird thing is they go ahead and recommend that you should get the pcie 2.0. most of the tests show that the difference is pretty much negligible right now, so i guess 1.0, rather 1.1 is not a handicap at the moment nor the near future. thanks guys.

 

[taltamir]

2 things:
1. PCIe v2 offers twice the wattage over the pcie slot. you might need it.
2. that "right now" is an article from april. its the last day of august now.

But unless you are planning on getting something like a 4870x2 I doubt that will matter.

 

[DSF]

Originally posted by: taltamir
2 things:
1. PCIe v2 offers twice the wattage over the pcie slot. you might need it.
2. that "right now" is an article from april. its the last day of august now.

But unless you are planning on getting something like a 4870x2 I doubt that will matter.

Cards aren't really being designed right now to take advantage of the extra wattage right now. Certainly not to the extent that they're incompatible with older PCI-e specs. Maybe it will be an issue in the future when manufacturers are expecting every user to have a 2.0 slot, but for now the power concern is negligible.

 

[minmaster]

yea the fact that most people have the older pcie slot will probably force card makers to not make something too exclusive for 2.0 slots, no?

 

[nenforcer]

yeah i don't think the wattage of the pci-express is an issue because every new high end video card already requires an ADDITIONAL 1x6 pin PCI-E connector or 2x6 or even 2x8. So the power supply is the determining factor in which video cards you can run not the wattage of the PCI-E 1.0 or 2.0 express slot.

 

[taltamir]

well... the reason cards now come with a 6pin + 8pin is so that ALL the power could come directly into the card, bypassing the mobo completely. If you look into it, on some cards the 6pin connector is optional while using a PCIe V2 slot. And is only needed for PCIe v1.
All it really means is a neater case as you don't have to plug that power cable to the video card.

Not a BIG issue, but it might matter to some.

 

[Skott]

If the mobo you are considering has PCIe v2.0 then thats fine but if you see something that has everything you need and want but only has PCIe v1.0 I wouldnt sweat it. Dont bother to upgrade to v2.0 just to have v2.0. Not worth it yet IMO.

 

[minmaster]

thanks, that's what i thought too.