One more dumb PCI E question.

1st post. Hello everyone! I'm not into gaming but 3D video editing which requires good graphics, too. Not real computer literate so pardon my ignorance but I do need your help.

My MB is an 5 year old Intel DG965RY. Need to upgrade VB & found one that is PCI 2.1. Is this compatible with PCI Express x16 connector on my motherboard? The motherboard manual under graphics reads:

- Intel® G965 Express Chipset with Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator
X3000 (Intel® GMA X3000)
- One PCI Express x16 connector supporting PCI Express graphics
cards

I'm pretty sure the answer is yes but I don't like returning thing (live out in the country so I shop mostly online).

I appreciate all responses.

PCI Express and PCI are two completely different standards, and are NOT interchangeable. if you buy a PCI Express X16 card, you can use it in any PCI Express X16 slot. If you buy a PCI graphics card, then you can only use it in a corresponding PCI slot.

Here is a picture to show you as an example .

A PCI Express graphics card and slot will look like this:


where as a PCI graphics card and slot will look like this:


Your motherboard has 1x PCI Express X16 graphics slot, 3x PCI Express X1 slots, and 3x standard PCI slots. Graphics cards are available for all 3 slot types. If you could list some demands or the specs of your system, perhaps we could point you in the direction of some good options. Graphics cards can range anywhere from $30 to $700 each and offer all kinds of performance and features.

Thanks Stang!

I tried to load some photos but I'm new & not allowed.

The card I'm interested in is PCI Express 2.1 x16, not PCI 2.1. My bad! Sorry to cross things up.

Here's the deal. My PC is 5 years old (Intel Core Duo 2.4, 4Gb RAM). I recently did a clean install of Win 7 64bit; old OS was XP 32bit. Current graphics card is a MSI NX6800GT-T2D256E. It seems this card isn't well suited for Win 7 64bit. Windows system score gives 5.9 in all categories except for graphics & 3D which range, depending on which nVidia driver is installed, 1 to 3.2 (1 with latest driver (258.96) & 3D activated & 3.2 with oldest nVidia driver (186.13) & no 3D).

I'm not into gaming but do lots of video editing which requires 3D text & other 3D video. There's lots of hesitation in 3D video previews that I need to play smoothly in order to accept or further develop before rendering into actual video. Often the software either jams or crashes & locks up my PC. I deem my needs as not as high as 3D gaming but more that what my 6800GT is capable of.

The card I'm thinking of is GV-R567OC-1GI (rev. 2.0) which is described by Newegg.com as:

GIGABYTE GV-R567OC-1GI Rev2.0 Radeon HD 5670 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

It's in the $100 range. I do have the required 400w power supply (actually 450w). The current card, 6800GT, has a power connector on its side which the GV-R567OC doesn't. I don't know if this is important or not.

I appreciate your help!

yes the PCI Express standard is designed to be backwards compatible, as the primary differences between the 1.0 spec, 2.0/2,1, and the upcoming 3.0 spec are all to do with the amount of available bandwidth. The slot physically doesn't change only the base clock speed of the bus itself.

It is worth pointing out that in essence, the cheapest and most basic graphics card available today will offer more performance than that 6800 GT does, so shopping in the midrange at cards like the HD 5670 is quite a step up. As you can compare the specs here and see for yourself.

With the 6 series Nvidia really started getting serious about GPU accelerated tasks, but 6 years later things are at a much higher level, so I doubt you would have any issues with software that relies on the video card heavily.

But as for quality, all modern video cards are going to provide better rendering of text and 3d video thanks to 2d/3d acceleration offered by Windows 7 and enhanced AA/AF, deinterlacing, full dynamic range support, edge enhancement, de-noise, de-blocking, dynamic contrast, and the list goes on and on.

But also note that not all rendering systems will push a lot of workload on to the GPU, a lot will still be CPU limited. So you may want to at least think about a CPU upgrade option as pretty soon you will be unable to find very many LGA 775 processors on the market as it's price point is already been overtaken by the cheaper Pentium G6xxx series and the Core i3 series, alongside the Core i5 and i7 offerings int he LGA 1156 and LGA 1366 sockets. And have you verified that the software you are using is compliant with Vista and 7? as the crashing and lock ups might be related to that. It is no secret that the 6 series has horrible support under vista and 7, as do many of ATI's cards from the period...but that's simply because they are so old that there is very little reason to support them. Newer cards are cheap, lower power, lower heat output, better features, and just...well...better

The HD 5670 is a great choice and I really wouldn't see any reason to go higher end, but you could still go slightly lower and see no sacrifices outside of gaming performance.

No comparison between the 2; HD5670 blows it away!

I had issues after installing Win 7 64bit related to how I installed several older software programs. As these programs were developed before Vista, & combined with the fact that I didn't upgrade to Vista, I was unaware how to install properly for Win 7. The software worked but didn't show any trouble signs until seriously put to work. Apparently they required some compatibility checks made in Properties of the installer, for XP SP3 & install as administrator, prior to activating the installer to install. Re-installing these programs correctly helped a great deal but still had graphic issues.

As for further upgrades, I'll hold off for now although the rendering speeds of the i7s are remarkable & very tempting to do so.

Thanks again. The GV-R567OC-1GI is on its way!