Msi 660 ti OC running on express 2.0

computerwonder

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Jul 8, 2012
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Just wanting clarification that I can run this on a 2.0 express slot. The board I will be running it on is a Asus P8Z68-V LX.



Full speccs

I5 2500K
660 TI 2GB 0C
8GB DDR3 RAM
 
G

Guest

Guest
yes PCI 3.0 and PCI 2.0 are fully compatible:
PCI Express 3.0
PCI Express 3.0 Base specification revision 3.0 was made available in November 2010, after multiple delays. In August 2007, PCI-SIG announced that PCI Express 3.0 would carry a bit rate of 8 gigatransfers per second (GT/s), and that it would be backward compatible with existing PCIe implementations.
 

computerwonder

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Jul 8, 2012
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Thanks for this answer was pretty sure it was backwards but started doubting my self, is it also true there is currently no real reason to jump to a 3.0 mobo and it is a marketing ploy?
 
G

Guest

Guest
i don't think of it as a marketing ploy, there are some insane quad SLI set ups that do benefit from the overhead bandwidth. but for the most part PCI 3.0 isn't necessary for excellent performance for most users.
 


You should say most people don't need PICE 3.0. Some with PCIE based SSD's make full use of the bandwidth today. Those who run 3 or 4 graphics cards in SLI / Crossfire could use the extra bandwidth.

To pile on what others commented, you will be just fine running the card in a PCIE 2.0 slot and you will see no performance degradation. Click buy, happy gaming.

If you like charts you can see PCIE 2.0 x16 is 1% slower than PICE 3.0 x16 on a GTX 680:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Ivy_Bridge_PCI-Express_Scaling/23.html