Deciding to treat myself to some xmas presents of my own and upgrading a few components on the ol' PC.

From what I understand, If I get a 16x PCIe v3.0 video card, and my mobo only has a 16x PCIe v2.0 thingie, the card will downclock or whatever and run at the v2.0 speeds, right?

This is the video card I'm looking at buying:

http://www.newegg.com/...aspx?Item=N82E16814130795

Other than the mini-HDMI port, is there anything that looks wrong/bad on that card? Or better models out there with lower than a 75$ price tag?

Also, now the memory question.

Talking DDR3 memory.. My mobo/chipset apparently has some limititation/chokepoint where the fastest my RAM can run at is 1333 MHz. If I get faster RAM, it'll downclock to the 1333MHz, right? If it's not much more expensive would it be wise to get faster RAM (lets say 2133) so I could utilize it if I ever upgraded the motherboard?

Thank you

hm. No actual HDMI. No Displayport. It doesn't say on newegg wat rev of HDMI it is.

If you want to think forward compatible, it isn't really. But if you don't anticipate getting a UHD/4K monitor (me wants!!) then it seems good to me. 'course it might not have the juice to drive that anyway haha.

DDR3: err yes, if your (memory controller?) can't go above that speed it'll just run at the slower speed; you need to have something capable of higher speeds to go higher.

UHD/4K res monitors are not on my horizons :) Also my bank account would have issues with some of that stuff

Oh wow, never had heard of the displayport interface.. interesting.

you could buy radeon hd 7770 and get hdmi and dport.

http://www.newegg.com/....aspx?Item=9SIA4GH2440747

http://www.hwcompare.com/...0-ddr3-vs-radeon-hd-7770/

hdmi version is 1.4a.

edit 1: or spend bit more and buy this http://www.bestbuy.com/...5297&skuId=1311785297 (http://www.hwcompare.com/...r3-vs-radeon-r7-250x-2gb/)

Thanks for the suggestion, Marshal..

Hrmm. So it looks like the 7770 is better than it. I've found two 7770 Models on newegg, the one you linked:

http://www.newegg.com/....aspx?Item=9SIA4GH2440747 - An AMD one Which is 2GB (

I found a different one on newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/...aspx?Item=N82E16814127687 - This one is MSI, but only 1 GB.

So, obviously 2 GB is better than 1 GB, other than the amount of memory being different, any real difference between an MSI 7770 and an AMD 7770?

I'm just a little nervous about the 2GB one not being sold by newegg, and there aren't any reviews on it..

I haven't dealt with PCIe v3.0 yet but I would be very careful with assuming it will scale down to v2.0 unless it specifically says it will work. In my experience with older boards ATI v2.0 cards would work in PCIe v1.0 boards but Nvidia cards would not.

http://www.techspot.com/...2gb-graphics-card.191363/

http://www.amd.com/...raphics/desktop/7000/7700

http://www.msi.com/...1GD5OC.html#hero-overview

overall amd is bit ahead.

True



This is true too

some mobos (for example mobos made for comp manufacturers) don't accept memory if its too high clocked so make sure that you can change those memory-sticks if not worky.

FACT:
IT ISN"T JUST THE HDMI PORT THAT IS "MINI" HERE

FACT:
DDR3 IS REALLY DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION 3. TRIFE MAKES RAM DANCE!

I've run PCIe v3 GPUs in PCIe v1 slots that were made almost a decade earlier (though to be fair in those cases it was all AMD and ATI). v2 and v3 are 99.99% compatible. AMD v3 mobos didn't even start coming out until a while after v3 devices were first available, and long after Intel mobos first did.

Your PCI v2 vs v3 port speeds are barely noticeable and your PCI v3 cards are backwards compatible anyway.

Don't upgrade the RAM. The ram will be cheaper down the road when you upgrade your core components.

I usually upgrade in 2 cycles, first being non-core components (GPU, SSD, Monitor, Case, etc). Then, I save money for the big purchase on mobo, ram, cpu (must be bought together).

I just recently nabbed this guy for under $200:
http://www.newegg.com/...60-_-14-130-932-_-Product

Good luck Trife, and send more wizards. :-)

I go the easy way and have a friend of mine build my machines from scratch, every other year and they are usually ahead of hte curve right up until I trade in for the newer model lol

:-)

you lose a few % performance usually with less pcie channels or a lower spec

its unlikely to be a big deal

its not uncommon to have a pcie x8 2.0 running as a x4 which is the same as a pcie x8 1.0 anyway just because you put something in another slot

nope, if has 2 graphic cards installed its possible that both run at x8 speed while single card would run with x16 speed. if has money to burn then can buy mobos with 2 or 3 x16 slots (different thing if gets any real benefit when compared to 2 or 3 x8).

Marshal, aside from saying 'nope' nothing you said contradicts enshula. In fact, if you remove those four letters both comments would be simultaneously correct. While it is common for some slots to run at reduced speed, there are also mobos that have three full x16 slots.

PCi-E V3.0 card like the one you mentioned or the HD7770 would be backward compatible with v2.0 since they are entry lvl cards would not lose performance at all. only time would be issue if you get High end card that needs to transfer data quiker esp when going through 4K response time be a lot faster on higher bus bandwith like the v3.0


as for ram most times they do down clock. some rams would be rejected by the board. if you have say 4gb of ram already would just leave it till you upgrade CPU and New board...

yes and even mobos with 7 pci-e slots (apparently only with 3-4 graphic cards can get max x16 speed and with 7 gets 2 x16 and rest x8 (needs damn big wallet to buy 7 top end cards and rest)) but they cost more (~3 times) than mobos with 1x 16 and 1x 8 (with dual cards both give x8 speed).