PCI 3.0 Card in 2.0 Slot?

[jcromano]

I'm considering upgrading my graphics card. My motherboard has PCI 2.0 x16 slots. New cards seem to be specced for PCI 3.0. I have a few fairly simple questions.

1. Will a 3.0 card fit into a 2.0 x16 slot?
2. If the card fits, will it work?
3. If the card fits and works, will its performance be noticeably hurt by running through 2.0 rather than 3.0?

I'd guess the answers to 1 and 2 are probably both "yes," but I'd appreciate confirmation there. I have no guess at the answer to 3.

Jim

 

[SlowSpyder]

It will work, I am using a PCIE 3.0 spec'd 7970 in my FX990 motherboard that only has PCIE 2.0 slots. There is very, very little to no performance difference. PCIE 2.0 x16 still provides plenty of bandwidth for modern cards. I imagine only a Titan Z or R9 295 might see some hit due to the PCIE 2.0, but any single GPU card should work and perform fine.

By the way, you're the ultimate lurker.

 

[netxzero64]

I'm considering upgrading my graphics card. My motherboard has PCI 2.0 x16 slots. New cards seem to be specced for PCI 3.0. I have a few fairly simple questions.

1. Will a 3.0 card fit into a 2.0 x16 slot?
2. If the card fits, will it work?
3. If the card fits and works, will its performance be noticeably hurt by running through 2.0 rather than 3.0?

I'd guess the answers to 1 and 2 are probably both "yes," but I'd appreciate confirmation there. I have no guess at the answer to 3.

Jim

1. yes
2. yes
3. not noticeable.

There is a review on techpowerup.com regarding PCIE scaling from PCIE 3.0x16 all the way down to PCIE 1.0. You can try to read about it there.

 

[jcromano]

Thanks to you both.

Jim

 

[SteveGrabowski]

PCIE-2.0 vs PCIE-3.0 gives about a 1-2% difference in FPS max, according to benchmarks I have seen.

 

[sheh]

Some related discussions and link in this thread: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2411556