PCI Express 2.0 x16

[Requiem157]

I am upgrading my video card from a 7950 GT to at 9800 gx2 one of the things I noticed about the 9800 gx2 is that is has PCI Express 2.0 x16 where my 7950 GT has PCI Express x16. newer mother boards support the PCI Express 2.0 x16 and my mother board only supports PCI Express x16. Now my question is what is the big difference in the PCI Express 2.0 x16 then the PCI Express x16. Is it worth spending the extra money to get a mobo that supports the PCI Express 2.0 x16 or should I just stick with mine? my mobo right now is a NVIDIA nForce 680i

 

[krnmastersgt]

2.0 = Doubled theoretical bandwidth, from what I understand the 9800GX2 is probably the closest thing to saturating all the bandwidth on a 1.1 slot, but still not enough. To my knowledge, your mobo is still sufficient to run the GX2 to it's potential.

 

[Jax Omen]

Toms Hardware just did an article on this. The only, and I mean ONLY game they had any tangible (outside a typical margin of error) different with PCI-E bandwidth was Flight Simulator X. Unless you're obsessive over that game, PCI-E 1.1 x16 will be plenty for any game, any GPU.

 

[biostud]

and you can only wonder what happens if you put 1gb memory on the card, when the need for accessing the system memory over the PCIe lanes becomes even less important.

 

[videopho]

Originally posted by: Jax Omen
Toms Hardware just did an article on this. The only, and I mean ONLY game they had any tangible (outside a typical margin of error) different with PCI-E bandwidth was Flight Simulator X. Unless you're obsessive over that game, PCI-E 1.1 x16 will be plenty for any game, any GPU.

Thanks for the tip-off on the FSx vs PCI-E2.0.
I now may consider the newer mobo.
Even with the newer 8800GTS-512 my FSx frame rate still pretty sucky.
(Either avg 30+fps @ 1680x1050 2aa/2af or avg 20+fps @ 1920x1200, 2aa/2af)
Would you point me a linky to that article. (thx)

 

[Jax Omen]

http://www.tomshardware.com/re...-express-2-0,1915.html

it's on the front page...

 

[Requiem157]

Ty for the responses everyone