How does Graphics Cards Compatibility work?

[Liam_84]

I am curious as I have seen conflicting information from various sources. I know that there are many different factors such as PSU capability, PCI slot compatibility, and Drivers, but I do not know how to tell if I could buy any GPU and put it into my mobo.

If anyone could let me know if it's as simple as "It fits in the PCI / PCIe slot and it can be powered by a PSU" or if it is more complicated than that.

And then there is bottlenecking which I am not sure how that happens.

Any advice is appreciated

CPU: AMD A10-7850K
GPU: N/A
PSU: SPI FSP350-50GMN | 103W Max Wattage | 350W
MOBO: MSI A78M-E35
RAM: 8GB DDR3 2133MHz

 

[WildCard999]

List your specs first. Depending on what your current components are and what you'd like to buy you may not even require additional power from the PSU. As far as drivers you would just download the newest drivers for whichever company (AMD or Nvidia).

 

[LinuxDevice]

Just a partial answer...you should be interested only in PCIe unless your motherboard is extraordinarily old.

Within PCIe there are optional data lane counts. If the video card has fewer lanes than the slot it will still work, but data bandwidth will be slowed by that amount. Example: x16 slot, x8 card...half the data throughput rate as what an x16 slot would give.

The reverse is that if the card has room to fit, then an x16 card might be able to be snapped into x8 slot, but would again run at half bandwidth.

PCIe version 1 is slower than version 2, and version 2 is slower than version 3. A newer version PCIe video card will throttle back to the older version and still function normally...but data throughput bandwidth will be reduced. A newer motherboard supporting revision 3 will work with older video cards of revision 1 or 2...but will throttle back speeds to accomodate the slower card.

PCIe v.1 runs at 2.5GT/s (gigatransfers/sec) per lane. PCIe v.2 runs at 5GT/s per lane. I think PCIe v.3 runs at 8GT/s per lane.

So your preference is to get a video card supporting the highest PCIe version the motherboard supports...faster wouldn't hurt, it also won't help unless you use the card later on a newer motherboard.

Preference would be towards getting the same lane count on the card as supported by the PCIe slot (x16 on almost any motherboard, though they typically have several slots and perhaps only one or two are x16). Note that sometimes motherboards have physical connectors for x16, but BIOS options can set the slot to electrically be x8. No compatibility issue is caused by this, but you would want to make sure BIOS options match your video card if possible in order to get best data throughput. Often there are non-video card configurations or dual video card configurations and a limited number of data lanes, so options are given for flexibility.

There are basically two kinds of connector schemes for auxiliary power, be sure you get the right power supply (though sometimes cable adapters work). Some PCIe video cards don't need the external connector, but these are low power cards with low performance. Whatever your video card requires be sure your power supply supports it...a system will be unstable or fail if the power supply is insufficient. Typical modern NVIDIA cards consume about 75W, some high end units perhaps more. Many older units consume more power...one of the advantages of newer technology is fewer watts for a given operation, and this implies less heat, which is how you can get more operations on the same power while preserving heat generation. I have no idea what your supply offers, but it is always a good idea to provide more power than required since there are peaks and stress.

 

[Eximo]

There is an added wrinkle regarding BIOS and UEFI type BIOS. Some of the latest cards, mostly Nvidia, don't work on the older motherboards. This mostly effects OEM machines that haven't received much in the way of BIOS updates. Motherboards from reputable companies will often just need a BIOS update and they will take new cards just fine.

PCIe bandwidth effectively doubles each generation, but each generation adds a little overhead, so it isn't perfect.

PCIe slots beyond revision 1.1 support 75W directly from the PCIe slot, no connectors required. Cards like the R5-230, R7-240, HD7730, HD6770, RX550, RX560, RX460, GT730, GTX750, GTX750ti, GTX1050, GTX1050Ti, GTX950 (75W), GT1030, and many lesser cards will all run without additional power. (Some of these are by no means low performance, the latest node shrink really made mainstream graphics available to even basic computers)

Rule of thumb = 75W equals 6-pin PCIe connector
150W = PCIe 8-pin connector
(Really more like 120W and 180W, but that is just the way GPU manufacturers like to leave a margin)

So a card that requires a 6-pin and 8-pin could be 300W (75W slot, 75W connector, 150W connector) A power supply to run such a card would need to be roughly twice that leave room for the rest of the computer. 550W - 650W with the appropriate power connectors.

 

[Liam_84]

List your specs first. Depending on what your current components are and what you'd like to buy you may not even require additional power from the PSU.

Oh yeah, sorry. I updated my original post.

 

[Eximo]

That is a fairly low end power supply, but you could put in any of the cards I listed with little issue.

If you wanted more, I suggest getting a larger power supply.

The motherboard will take pretty much any GPU, however, the CPU will limit top end performance, so there is little sense in spending too much. You should probably stop around the GTX1060 6GB or RX580 class of GPU.

An added benefit of a GPU would let you disable the onboard graphics of the APU. You will get system memory back.