[proserpine]

I am hoping someone can clarify this for me. I want to upgrade from a 7800gt to the 8800gt, but one is pci-e x16 and the other is pci-E 2.0. The mother board ive got is an Asus P5B delux. Will the 2.0 be a problem on this motherboard?

Thanks,

-proserpine

[rabb1t]

It's fine.

It is like the old AGP 2x, 4x, 8x. The PCIe v2 cards have more bandwith, so if you have a PCIe v2 motherboard it can ... do more talking. If you don't it will just drop to the standard v1 speeds.

Did you look around Fozzik's hardware area? (The Hardware within Hardware section.) We've had a thread on it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express
Scroll down to near the bottom.

Do check your power supply can handle the new card. You should be fine, but it might be good to check to be sure if you haven't already.

[proserpine]

I did look through both Fozziks and your hardware reccomendations (which helped me settle on the overclocked 8800gt) but i musted have missed the thread on v2 cards.

The powersupply I am using is the antec truepower 600w and I am hoping that is enough for at least a few years to come

The only concern I have with this card is that several of the comments on Newegg suggest that the default fan speed is too low and had to do something fancy in bios to increase it. It sounded as if the vid card fan speed is not a standard option in bios and they needed an additional program to change it.

Anythoughts as to if that card actually needs adjustment beyond the default settings?

[rabb1t]

You have to remember that the majority of those comments are from dummyheads.

I was helping someone else with a choice on that and read a lot of those comments. What they seem to be complaining about is that they think the default speeds are too low, typically during times the card is idle and that it doesn't kick in soon enough under load. The exact same issues were around for the single slot cooler design on the 7800 GT. It does run a little warmer than some cards. It's fans do run a little higher when idle. But I honestly wouldn't worry about it unless you are having trouble with the cards.

What people in those threads seem to forget is that the manufacturers' aren't going to release cards which are incapable of cooling. That's just dumb to think that. If everyone had to go to an external source to tweak their settings or suffer from overheating issues the RMAs would be through the roof because most peeps just don't know how to do that.

If you are really concerned about it I'd recommend two things...

1- Get an 8800 GTS G92 instead; basically sex in a box there. It's a little more powerful, isn't a whole lot more money, kicks the butt of the previous GTX at about 60% the price, and has the standard double-wide cooler which pushes the heat outside of the case.

2- Get an Evga 8800 GT card. Evga cards are designed so that you can update the card bios. Updating the card bios would update the manufacturer default settings with fan speeds. So, if they truly felt that the card's fan wasn't kicking in at the right temperatures, they could adjust the bios and put up a post saying, 'hey everyone, try out this bios if you are having issues.'


PS - Hum, my bad on the thread. Looks like you are right in that it doesn't, or did not ever, exist. I think I may have held off on announcing it because it was too early and too much info for most peeps to need and then never got around to actually announcing it later. But yeah, no worries, you will be able to use a PCIe v2 or even PCIe v3 (graphics) card in a PCIe v1 slot and it will work. It will work 'gimped' compared to what it would be on the higher version, but it won't be any slower than a card native to that type. I don't think there is any current gain for v2 cards in v2 slots compared to v2 cards in v1 slots. It probably won't show any real gain for a while. I'd guess that it certainly won't be much of a gain till v2 slots are mainstream (like 3 years from now.)

[rhagz]

Originally Posted by rabb1t

What people in those threads seem to forget is that the manufacturers' aren't going to release cards which are incapable of cooling. That's just dumb to think that.

...

So, if they truly felt that the card's fan wasn't kicking in at the right temperatures, they could adjust the bios and put up a post saying, 'hey everyone, try out this bios if you are having issues.'

Actually the 8800GT fan is too low under load. EVGA released updated BIOSes that ramp up the speed a little quicker than it had been. So no, it's not dumb to think that. The cooling is barely adequate most of the time but it can be out of control under heavy demand if your ambient temps are fairly warm.