Odd upgrade question (new card in PCIe v1 system)

[Nooge]

I have an older computer I want to play some modern games on, but I am not looking to play at high resolution (only 1280x1024 monitor). I am going to a LAN party where I will be playing Borderlands 2, Natural Selection 2. I want to have 45+ fps in so I don't feel like my PC is holding me back. But since I don't game much anymore, I don't want to dump a bunch of money into it either.

I suspect my current system is OK except for the GPU. However, my motherboard (see bottom of post) is only PCIe V1. I read PCIe 2 and 3 are backwards compatible, but I question if the newer cards would be any faster than my 8600 GTS on the slower bus. (I understand it will be slower than it's capable of doing.)

Ideally, I can get the performance I want by getting a decent (maybe $130) new graphics card (maybe this). Then later I can get a new CPU, mobo, RAM combo and higher res monitor.

So, would that GPU likely get me what I want (45fps at 1280x1024 on NS2, Borderlands 2) with my current system?

Any other suggestions?

System Specifications:

I. Processor/CPU:
Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4GHz Q6600 LGA775

II. Current Graphics Card:
GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB

III. Display Resolution:
1280x1024

IV. Power Supply Unit Specification (Brand, Wattage, Ampage, Age). If possible, please provide a link to a website containing the power supply specifications:
PC Power & Cooling 750W 80 Plus Certified http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817703009

V. Case Specifications(N/A, Model, Length, Low Profile, Cooling, HTPC, Water, Silent):
ATX Mid Tower air cooled

Purchase Details:

I. Budget? Please be sure to include currency (If not USD), retailer preferences & specify whether rebates are a viable option.
Hopefully $150 or less

II. Any particular preferences (Manufacturer[nV or AMD], Brand[XFX, Sapphire, EVGA, etc], Cooling Solutions)?
Anything

III. Do you plan to have any Multi-GPU solutions such as Crossfire or SLI?
Nope

IV. Have you previously looked at a product(s) which you feel would fit your needs?
Not sure

V. What are your needs for this GPU? Which games(If any)do you intend to play? If you have this information at hand, what are the desired detail levels?
Natural Selection 2 (HL2 mod), Borderlands 2

VI. Do you plan on overclocking the card you intend to purchase?
I'm open to it

Additional Notes

Motherboard
Gigabyte DA-965P-DS3 Rev. 3.3
PCIe V1 x16 slot
4GB DDR2 RAM
SATA HDD
Win 7 X64

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128012
http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=2456#sp

 

[firewolfsm]

I think your current card is just fine. If you don't feel that way, you can get a 7700 or 6700. Or scour the FS forum for a used video card and throw it in. Don't worry about PCI specifications, once you're at 16x things should be ok regardless of version.

 

[SPBHM]

I think going over $130 for a 7850 would be something to consider, but you should be fine with a 650 Ti for 1280x1024 in most games (without extremely high settings), now without OC I don't think the q6600 (2.4ghz) can hold Borderlands2 at 45FPS all the time,


so I would be more worried about CPU performance than the limitation of PCIE 1.x

but definitely you are going to notice a big improvement in many cases, even with the stock q6600 and "low" res.

 

[Termie]

I'm reading more and more reports of new cards not working in PCIe 1.x motherboards. Also, your cpu will be a pretty big bottleneck in some games, including borderlands.

My suggestion is to buy an older, cheaper card, like an HD 6670 or 6770. They're plenty fast to run those games, and less likely to be incompatible since they're PCIe 2.1, not the newer 3.0.

Also, anything much more powerful is going to be cpu-bottlenecked.

 

[Nooge]

Thank you all for the feedback.

I'm reading more and more reports of new cards not working in PCIe 1.x motherboards. Also, your cpu will be a pretty big bottleneck in some games, including borderlands.

My suggestion is to buy an older, cheaper card, like an HD 6670 or 6770. They're plenty fast to run those games, and less likely to be incompatible since it's PCIe 2.1, not the newer 3.0.

Also, anything much more powerful is going to be cpu-bottlenecked.

I may go that route. Any idea how much OC potential the q6600 has?

 

[Ken g6]

Any idea how much OC potential the q6600 has?

The q6600 just happens to be the best overclocker of that generation. With good cooling you could probably exceed 3GHz without much difficulty on a new one. Of course, yours isn't new, but it's still likely to overclock well.

In 2007, for instance:

Unlapped, mine idles at 39C and loads around 66C @ 3.2GHz.

 

[darckhart]

yes, the q6600 was a great oc'er. with a decent hsf, it's basically a free bump to 333x9. no need to even mess around too much with any other settings.

i used to have an abit ip35 mobo which was pcie v1.1 and 1.0a. i was able to run a radeon 5850 in it with no trouble. that's a v2.0 card. never tried a v3.0 card in there though. so, i think you'd be fine with v2.0 and v2.1 cards which gives you quite a lot of choices, especially if you consider used. =)

 

[frozentundra123456]

I think going over $130 for a 7850 would be something to consider, but you should be fine with a 650 Ti for 1280x1024 in most games (without extremely high settings), now without OC I don't think the q6600 (2.4ghz) can hold Borderlands2 at 45FPS all the time,


so I would be more worried about CPU performance than the limitation of PCIE 1.x

but definitely you are going to notice a big improvement in many cases, even with the stock q6600 and "low" res.

I would suggest the 6770 or 7770. I ran BL2 on my older system at 1440x 900 without any problem with an E4500 and a 9800GT. I didnt really measure the framerate, but it seemed fine. In most games my CPU could keep up with the 9800GT, so I would think your cpu would be able to keep up with a 6770 or 7770 in most games.

I only played single player though, might be more demanding if you have 4 players and more enemies on the screen. I havent played the other game, so cant comment on it.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I'm reading more and more reports of new cards not working in PCIe 1.x motherboards. Also, your cpu will be a pretty big bottleneck in some games, including borderlands.

Interesting, because I haven't heard of any issues, other than with PCI-E 3.0 video cards not running reliably in PCI-E 3.0 mode on X79 chipset boards.

Any specific PCI-E 3.0 video cards, or specific PCI-E 1.0/1.1 motherboards stick out?

I've never had any issues with my P35 boards and PCI-E 2.0 cards, although I've yet to try any PCI-E 3.0 cards on those boards.

 

[Termie]

Interesting, because I haven't heard of any issues, other than with PCI-E 3.0 video cards not running reliably in PCI-E 3.0 mode on X79 chipset boards.

Any specific PCI-E 3.0 video cards, or specific PCI-E 1.0/1.1 motherboards stick out?

I've never had any issues with my P35 boards and PCI-E 2.0 cards, although I've yet to try any PCI-E 3.0 cards on those boards.

Just an example - I saw a review yesterday on Newegg of a new AMD card, which someone gave a 1-star review and said it wasn't compatible with his motherboard. Turned out it was a PCIe 1.0 motherboard designed for the Pentium IV...

 

[VirtualLarry]

That doesn't prove much, especially if it was a via-chipset mobo. (Edit: likely if it was a P4 with a PCI-E slot, unless it was a 965 or P35 board, both of which I think are PCI-E 1.1.) I had a via-chipset P4 mobo (S478), that wouldn't work with a NV 6600 card that was PCI-E.

Had to clear the CMOS after trying to install the card, just to get the mobo to boot again (after removing the card).

 

[Nooge]

Turns out since NS2 is source based it has a decent utiliy built-in that will tell you if you are GPU or CPU limited (type r_stats in console). I did some tests with my setup and found sometimes I was often GPU limited, but when I really dialed down the graphics I sometimes would still get laggy from CPU performance. So you guys were right that I need to improve both.

I know that I chose the q6600 (and my mobo) for it's overclocking ability, but for some reason I never bought a decent HSF (just used stock). At the time I was GPU limited, so I never got around to OC. Then it's been so long since I built it up (almost 6 years), I forgot how OC'able this CPU really is. Seems like bumping it to 3Ghz will make it fairly powerful.

For fun I tried to OC to 3Ghz with the stock fan. Wow, it was heating up fast! So I chose to get a PCIe 2.1 HD 6670 with GDDR5 (many have DDR3 instead) for $95. Then I spent the extra money on a giant Zalman HSF beast. That will give me much more flexibility in my overclocks. Then I should have a decent balance of CPU and GPU performance while keeping it under $150 (including tax & shipping), so I'm pretty happy.

Thanks for all the help! I will post my results when I get it rebuilt.