What's the best pci-e video card?

PunterCam

PunterCam

Active Member
Sorry, I know this will've been covered, but I've got yet another 'effin virus which stops me from conducting ANY online searches, and I don't have a second in my life to trawl through this site for answers, so...

I need to replace my 7300gt in my mac pro. I'll keep it to run osx (pc hardware won't run in osx) and I'll buy a second video card to run in windows (which will surely work. I think.). I'm completely behind the times now though, and I've no idea what is up to date.

I don't feel the need to run everything at max settings when gaming, but as close to would be preferable - I'll happilly run at 1080x780 or so, maybe 1200x900, but never any higher.

Any suggestions? I'm basically gonna do this upgrade instead of a ps3, so I'll spend up to 250 british pounds, but preferably around 200.

cheers all
 
I only have pci-e 1.0 slots, the 4870 seems to be 2.0. Will it work, and if it does, is it still the fastest card I could get for pci-e 1.0?
 
PunterCam said:
I only have pci-e 1.0 slots, the 4870 seems to be 2.0. Will it work, and if it does, is it still the fastest card I could get for pci-e 1.0?
Click to expand...

Im not sure you will be getting its full potentail with pci-e 1.0.

Either get a new motherboard 60 for the P5QL.E.

If you had 250 then get a gtx280 or get a new board and a 4870.
 
New motherboard is a non starter with this computer. Are pcie1.0 slots actually the limiting factor for video cards? Did the 8800s completely max out that bandwidth?

Basically I'm asking now - will another card (a pci-e 1.0 card), being designed and therefore optimised for 1.0, be faster than the pci-e 2.0 optimised 4870?
 
Bottom line, you want a motherboard with PCI-E x16 slots. Cards like the hd4870 need to utilize a x16 slot for full potential.
 
Well I have a pci-e 16x socket that I will use for whatever card I get, but it's still pci-e 1, and I'd assume pci-e 2 is another step up from that, with presumably the same physical connections.

So, answers to question above? Please! I'd love to get this done and ordered asap, before I change my mind and buy something stupid. Like another car.
 
Guys those cards wont work with mac pros. You need a specific boot rom gpu. The 8800GT 512MB for mac I know is avalable
 
like what kill bill said, the 8800gt is the best card available, in your situation, you could get a workstation card, but those run into the thousands
 
Only certain cards will work if I'm planning to use them in OSX, but whatever card I buy at the moment will be used solely in windows, surely negating the whole 'mac hardware' problem.

So... PCI-e 2.0 cards! Do they run in PCI-e 1.0 slots, and if so, is there much of a performance drop-off?

And hey, whatever I get, if it doesn't work I'll just send it back, but I'm confident ANY video card will run with my computer.
 
So... PCI-e 2.0 cards! Do they run in PCI-e 1.0 slots, and if so, is there much of a performance drop-off?
Click to expand...
Yes. As for how much performance you lose, depends on the card. Low-to-mid range, none. Higher end, a few. It's not going to make a noticeable difference unless it's a multi-GPU single card solution (in which case it bottlenecks pretty bad, AFAIK).

In case of a 8800GT, the performance loss is insignificant, you need not to worry about it.
 
Man, I can't believe nobody answered it. Like Hackplate has said, Yeah. It'll work fine. I'm running a PCI-e 2.0 card in a PCI-e 1.0 slot.

I don't think there'd be a huge difference. Hardly noticeable anyway.
 
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