Budget gpu for old computer

[symyo]

Hi! I'm looking to replace a dying gts 250 on an old computer. The most interesting cards I've seen in my price range are the radeon 7770 and the gt 740 (gddr5 version).

I know the 7770 outperforms the gt 740 however my motherboard has a pci-e 1.0a slot so I'm wondering if the radeon would still make such a difference over the gt 740 when both are running limited by the pci-e slot.

Also I'm unsure the 7770 would work with my motherboard, seems it worked for some people on pci-e 1.x slots while for others it didn't, so I guess it depends on the motherboard itself. Nvidia cards however don't seem to have any retrocompatibility issues so that's another thing to consider. I asked the store and I can return the card if it doesn't work but I'd be running with the shipping costs of course...

So in short; would there be such a performance gap between the two (running in a pci-e 1.0a slot) to make it worth the risk of wasting some money on shipping or should I just get the gt 740?

btw my specs are:

- 600w psu (I don't remember the brand and I'm not at home to check it but it's not a generic one and it worked fine with the gts 250)

- gigabyte ga965p-ds4 motherboard

- e6600 3.0 ghz

- 4 gb ddr2 667 ram

 

[clutchc]

You shouldn't have any issue with the HD 7770 on a version 1.0 slot. There is always an occasional problem it seems like with 1.1 slots. That was a weird version modification. The HD 7770 will be fine for performance on the 1.0 slot. The card isn't fast enough to saturate even that slot's bandwidth.

As long as you have a retail MB, it should be fine. Some OEM boards have issues, though.