Card compatability to motherboard

[TomerN]

Hi everyone.

I plan on purchasing:
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 750 Ti GV-N75TWF2OC-4GI
www.gigabyte.us/Graphics-Card/GV-N75TWF2OC-4GI

I have a H81M-K motherboard
https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/H81MK/

I just wanna make sure, are they compatible?
1. In terms of PCIe clots, because they are not exactly the same
2. In terms of PSU. I saw on the card specs that it says: Recommended PSU 400W (with one 6-pin external power connector)
What is the external power connector?

Thanks,
Tomer

 

[raisonjohn]

Hi everyone.

I plan on purchasing:
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 750 Ti GV-N75TWF2OC-4GI
www.gigabyte.us/Graphics-Card/GV-N75TWF2OC-4GI

I have a H81M-K motherboard
https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/H81MK/

I just wanna make sure, are they compatible?
1. In terms of PCIe clots, because they are not exactly the same
2. In terms of PSU. I saw on the card specs that it says: Recommended PSU 400W (with one 6-pin external power connector)
What is the external power connector?

Thanks,
Tomer

Yes, they are compatible.

1. Both the GPU and the motherboard use PCIe x16. "x16" means the physical length of the slot. The GPU has a PCIe x16 interface while the motherboard has a PCIe x16 slot. This means the GPU is physically compatible with your motherboard - just plug it in.

In the case of the GPU, it states in the specs "PCIe 3.0". The "3.0" means the version of the PCIe interface (a faster version than PCIe 2.0). PCIe versions are backwards-compatible. So, even if your motherboard has a PCIe 2.0 x16 slot, you can still plug in a GPU having a PCIe 3.0 x16 or PCIe 2.0 x16 interface. Since they are compatible, the GPU will only run at PCIe 2.0 speeds due to the motherboard's limitations. No need to worry about performance in this case, as GPU's such as yours cannot saturate the bandwidth of a PCIe 3.0. You will see no difference whether running the GPU in PCIe 2.0 or PCIe 3.0.

2. The 6-pin external power connector comes from the PSU (usually a cable connector marked as "PCIE"). This is required to be plugged in to certain GPU's that require additional 12V to power the card. Some PSU's have a 6+2 pin PCIE cable (for certain GPU's requiring 8-pin connectors instead). Such PCIE cables coming from your PSU should look like this (at left, a 6-pin external power connector; at right, a 6+2pin external power connector):

If your PSU comes with a 6+2pin, you can simply plug in the 6-pin into the GPU socket and leave the 2-pin unattached. The 6-pin socket on the GPU will look something like this: