Question will a PCIe 3.0 Card work on a 2.0 PCIe slot

[Gfost73]

as title indicates, I was going to upgrade my video card, and was wondering if a PCIe 3.0 card will work on a board that supports PCIe 2.0 my Motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-78LMT-S2 ver 1.2 and the card I was looking into is Radeon RX 570 RS XXX Edition. any information would be greatly appreciated.. thanks

 

[Lutfij]

They are backwards compatible so you should be good to go but if your board lacks an UEFI BIOS environment and/or you lack the necessary power from the PSU, you're going to be seeing a black screen in spite of powering up to GUI.

Mind sharing your full specs like so:
CPU:
Motherboard:
Ram:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
PSU:
Chassis:
OS:

 

[AllanGH]

Generally-speaking, a PCIe 3.0 card will fallback to 2.0 performance when installed in a PCIe 2.0 host--with the expected performance hits, of course.

 

[Gfost73]

PC specs
AMD FX 6300
Gigabyte GA-78LMT-S2
8GB ddr3 RAM
1TB WD blue HDD
500GB WD blue HDD
MSI AMD Radeon R7 250
EVGA 450BV bronze
xNova Case
windows 10 home

 

[Gfost73]

They are backwards compatible so you should be good to go but if your board lacks an UEFI BIOS environment and/or you lack the necessary power from the PSU, you're going to be seeing a black screen in spite of powering up to GUI.

Mind sharing your full specs like so:
CPU:
Motherboard:
Ram:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
PSU:
Chassis:
OS:

I'm not sure on the bios, I know it says Award bios I do believe, but that part of the PC I know very little about. is there a way to know if it is UEFI bios?

 

[Gfost73]

I have confirmed my PC is an older BIOS and not the newer UEFI , so does this mean that I cannot use a PCIe3.0 card in my PCIe2.0 slot? or would it be a matter of needing to pre install drivers for the Card? can anyone clear this up , thanks

 

[AllanGH]

Then I misdirected you, and I apologize.

 

[Gfost73]

Then I misdirected you, and I apologize.

how so? Im still confused haha, from all I have read they claim it should work, however now I'm not sure where my Bios is an older standard BIos and not the newer UEFI, Ive read other forms and no one mentioned the Bios, they do mention PSU however, and I know the one I have isn't very powerful. I was just hoping to upgrade my graphics card with something better, but am on a very limited budget so I didnt want to make mistakes and buy something I couldn't use. and as of this time Im still confused. I guess Ill have to hope for the best

 

[AllanGH]

Are you trying to position a current purchase of GPU for future upgrade use?

In other words, are you looking at buying a PCIe3 GPU now, in anticipation of using it after you upgrade the MB, later; or are you solely concerned with increasing the performance now?

If you're only concerned with right now, and can deal with buying a better GPU when you do the MB upgrade, there are--most likely--PCIe2 cards that would give you an immediate advantage.

 

[bniknafs9]

yes but you won't be able to have all the perks that come with pcie 3.0

 

[Gfost73]

Are you trying to position a current purchase of GPU for future upgrade use?

In other words, are you looking at buying a PCIe3 GPU now, in anticipation of using it after you upgrade the MB, later; or are you solely concerned with increasing the performance now?

If you're only concerned with right now, and can deal with buying a better GPU when you do the MB upgrade, there are--most likely--PCIe2 cards that would give you an immediate advantage.

just seemed 3.0 were easier to find and somewhat cheaper than many of the 2.0, but I think I understand now, the card should work but without the full advantages of what the card could do, but it would also be somewhat future proof if I did decide to upgrade my MB one day

 

[AllanGH]

I wonder if it might be better instead, in the long run, to consider the matter of upgrading the MB before going for a GPU upgrade?

The newer MB should work with your current GPU....or so it would seem.

 

[AllanGH]

...does this mean that I cannot use a PCIe3.0 card in my PCIe2.0 slot? or would it be a matter of needing to pre install drivers for the Card?

...if your board lacks an UEFI BIOS environment and/or you lack the necessary power from the PSU, you're going to be seeing a black screen in spite of powering up to GUI.