290x on PCI 2.0

[BigBlueHouse]

Hi I am looking at getting a MSI Radeon R9 290X Twin FrozR to replace my 7950. I have an AMD system which means I only have PCI 2.0. Going by these benchmarks (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Ivy_Bridge_PCI-Express_Scaling/23.html) done on the 7970 the perfomance loss will be very minimal. But because the 290x has a wider memory bus of 512bits will the loss be more?

 

[Brantyn Gerik]

performance loss will still be very minimal, like within margin of error (1-2%) so no need to worry about pci 2.0, as nothing at the moment can even max that out.

the primary reason for pci 3.0 was that it wasn't too hard to increase the bandwidth of the slot, so they did it hoping to see more performance gains from things like sli and flagship cards, which in the cases of sli or crossfire has had a slight improvement.

i am not sure about this next bit, but you may want to look to see if the 290x can crossfire without a crossfire bridge over pci 2.0 This would be about the only restriction i could see from 2.0, and even then it doesnt seem likely

 

[L Helps]

There will be almost no difference with pcie 3.0 so just get it,almost all am3+ motherboards dont even have pci e 3.0 themself while they manufacture those gpu's.
What cpu do you have?

 

[BigBlueHouse]

Cheers for the replies chaps. I have an unlocked FX-6200