[SOLVED] PCI 3 Graphicsin PCI 2 SLOTS for 3d Workstation?

[williamchitham]

My main PC is an X58/i7-970 based system which I use for Photoshop but also a certain amount of 3ds Max. I'd like to improve the 3d performance (both viewport and rendering) but the RAM is maxed out at 24gb and there isn't much more to be had from the CPU even if I could track down a 980 or something so I was thinking maybe a modern graphics card (or 2?) may be an option now that the software is able to use the gpu for rendering. Would I get the benefit of a card like a GTX1060 given that the mb (Asus P6T SE) only has PCI 2 slots?
Thanks, William.

 

[Eximo]

It should be fine. PCIe 2.0 x16 is still 8GB/s, 3.0 is 15.75GB/s and GPUs still can't quite go that fast. But essentially PCIe 2.0 x16 is equivalent to PCIe 3.0 x8.

Back in the day when people compared these you would see a 5-10% change in performance with top end cards when under a benchmark. Normal use the differences were minimal.

 

[williamchitham]

That's good news, thanks. As a supplementary question, is it possible to mix and match GPUs when using them for rendering? For example, if I install a card now, say a GTX1060, and then add another, different, card one in a few months time are they likely to work together?

 

[Eximo]

That would depend on the software in question. There are products that can treat any GPUs as an open pool. Others might have you select a specific device to use for rendering.