Looking for PCIe v2.0 x16 card with DP1.2 for 3840x2160@60Hz and DirectX support

[hempels]

Looking for a card that will work with my older Core i7 mainboard (Dell 0X501H) which is PCI 2.0 x16 to drive a high pixel density monitor (3840 x 2160) at 60Hz. My research indicates that means it needs a DisplayPort 1.2 output.

The only cards I can find with those specs are workstation cards (e.g. Quadro K2200). That would be fine since I'm not a gamer and I primarily need this setup for work *but* I also need to be able to run my flight simulators which require DirectX.

Is there a unicorn out there? A PCI Express 2.0 x16 card with DirectX 10+ support that also provides DP1.2 output with 2160 resolution at 60Hz? Ignoring cost for now. If it meets the specs, I'd consider it.

 

[endeavour37a]

Any PCIe 3.0 card will work just fine in your 2.0 slot with no slow down of the card, both slots and cards are all comparable with each other. And the new hot cards will not saturate your 2.0 slot, you have plenty of bandwidth there to run it just fine.

 

[hempels]

Any PCIe 3.0 card will work just fine in your 2.0 slot with no slow down of the card, both slots and cards are all comparable with each other.

Interesting. Thank you for that answer.

Raises a question, though. What's the purpose of the version change if v3 cards are backward compatible with v2 slots?

 

[endeavour37a]

Tech marches on I guess, they could so they did a 3.0 lane is basically twice as fast as a 2.0 lane, but even new cards do not saturate the bus at this point. The PCIe bus is used for more than just graphics cards, the new M.2 interface uses them for SSDs also. Most MBs only have 16 lanes to work with in 3.0, so in SLI that means only 8 lanes per card, so faster is better, right?

Take a look at this, it explains a bit about the PCIe bus...
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Ivy_Bridge_PCI-Express_Scaling/1.html

 

[Karadjgne]

The original was pcie 1.0. The architecture was changed slightly with 1.1 and remained the same up till 2.2, the only addition being larger bandwidth capability. With pcie 2.3 the architecture was revamped, as was amd's capabilities, but not nvidia. Now with pcie 3.0 the bandwidth was upped again to its current capability to better handle hdmi and DP, both of which opted to remain closer to the pcie 2.0 standards for better marketability. Nvidia is backwards compatible from 3.0 to 1.1, amd is only compatible from 3.0 to 2.3, you'd need an older card series to handle 2.2 to 1.1.

What gets most ppl confused is when motherboards come into play stating pcie 2.0, mainly AMD, but this is a bandwidth standard size, not an architectural design, so an AMD card rated for pcie 2.3 will work fine on a mobo with pcie 2.0 as the bandwidth sizes are the same.

I personally would suggest any good size card, gtx 770, or r9 280 or better and 3Gb or better. So far AMD has shown better performance at higher resolutions, but at the cost of higher power requirements, higher temps from the gpu and sometimes a rethink of case cooling. A gtx970/980 would be a good choice for nvidia.