PCI 3.0 Graphics cards on a PCI 2.0 bus?

[JohnnyGringo]

  One of my graphics cards died. At this time I'm looking to only replace it (or both of them) and not the entire system.

I  prefer NVIDIA cards, but all their newest cards run on the PCI 3.0 bus. MY ASUS motherboard (P8P67 DELUXE) only has the PCI 2.0.  However, the Nvidia GTX 680 GPU Specs specify:

"PCI Express 3.0*

*GeForce GTX 680 supports PCI Express 3.0. The Intel X79/SNB-E PCI Express 2.0 platform is only currently supported up to 5GT/s (PCIE 2.0) bus speeds even though some motherboard manufacturers have enabled higher 8GT/s speeds."
www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-680/specifications

Does anyone have any experience or opinions on how well this would work?

Is it time to bite the bullet and build a new system?  I'd prefer spending that money on a bench top power supply and function generator.

As always, thanks for your feedback. It is greatly appreciated.

[Fsck]

two words: backwards compatible.

[Monkeh]

PCI-E is generally back and forth compatible. It'll work fine.

[JohnnyGringo]

Thanks !!!  Is that generally true for all (NVIDA)  PCI-E 3.0 GPUS? Or just the 680?

[Monkeh]

It's generally true for the entire bus.

[JohnnyGringo]

Outstanding! That greatly increases my choice of cards.  Thanks for your replies everyone.

[Psi]

I recently got a nvidia GTX760 to replace a dead 8800GT and it worked great in my old motherboard which is PCI-Express 1.1

[JohnnyGringo]

How do you like the 760? Would you recommend it over the new titan or the 690?

[Psi]

No point getting a titan or 690. The 760 plays all games perfectly fine at a fraction of the cost.
The extra cost of a titan or 690 only means the card will last a bit longer before becoming too slow in the future.

It's much more cost effective to buy a generally good card now, then another in a few years.  (verses one expensive card now)

When you upgrade more often you get an improved chipset which provides a larger speed/quality improvement than one initial expensive card with a high clock rate.

[hans]

The only difference in PCI-E specifications is the available bandwidth. When PCI-E 3.0 was introduced the current gen graphic cards (GTX 6-series) got absolutely zero increase in fps, because  it could not take advantage of the extra bandwidth.
I think a GTX 7-series will likely perform the same, or only a very few fps extra with PCI-E 3.0. So nothing to be lost.
Likely PCI-E 3.0 will only matter when you run cards in SLI or something with 3 monitor gaming with ridiculous sized textures.

I always have a budget on computer equipment, aimed for the 'sweet spot'. Don't buy rubbish, because it's of no good use. Don't buy the absolute high-end stuff, because it's a waste of money. 2 years back I got a HD7850 (AMD, regretful) card, for ~220 euro point. I will likely not upgrade it in the upcoming year or so, because it runs all of my games superb (like Skyrim modded to the bone, and some simulator games with 3 monitor eyefinity)

[amyk]

And if you are not a gamer/3D renderer/etc. that requires a lot of GPU power, the simplest integrated GPU will be more than enough. High-end GPUs tend to use more power even at idle , run hotter, and have louder fans.

[NiHaoMike]

No point getting a titan or 690. The 760 plays all games perfectly fine at a fraction of the cost.
The extra cost of a titan or 690 only means the card will last a bit longer before becoming too slow in the future.

It's much more cost effective to buy a generally good card now, then another in a few years.  (verses one expensive card now)

When you upgrade more often you get an improved chipset which provides a larger speed/quality improvement than one initial expensive card with a high clock rate.

4k takes about 4 times as much GPU as 1080p at the same frame rate. You'll really want a top notch GPU or two for that. Keep that in mind if you're planning to upgrade to that anytime soon.

[JohnnyGringo]

4k takes about 4 times as much GPU as 1080p at the same frame rate. You'll really want a top notch GPU or two for that. Keep that in mind if you're planning to upgrade to that anytime soon.

Do you think that nvidia's 700 series will handle 4K? 

EDIT: Looks like it but only at around 60 Hz...

1 - 3840x2160 at 30Hz or 4096x2160 at 24Hz supported over HDMI. 4096x2160 (including 3840x2160) at 60Hz supported over Displayport. Support for 4k tiled MST displays requires 326.19 driver or later.

WoW!!  This is the first I've heard about 4K.  Any ETA on when we'll see 4K monitors?

4K UHD is a resolution of 3840 pixels × 2160 lines (8.3 megapixels, aspect ratio 16:9) and is one of the two resolutions of ultra high definition television targeted towards consumer television, the other being 8K UHD which is 7680 pixels × 4320 lines (33.2 megapixels). 4K UHD has twice the horizontal and vertical resolution of the 1080p HDTV format, with four times as many pixels overall.

[Psi]

Yeah, i doubt even the most expensive ati/nvidia card available now will have the power to play the kind of games that will be out when 4K desktops becomes mainstream.

Probably wont see consumer 4k for another few years at least.
We may see >1080P desktop monitors getting cheaper in that timeframe though, like 2560x1600

The next gen oculus rift might be interesting though. The consumer version will be 1080P but this kind of VR really needs 4K.
Its also much easier to make small 4k displays, so we might see a 4K oculus rift V2 and that will require a videocard that can game at 4k

[Fsck]

4k takes about 4 times as much GPU as 1080p at the same frame rate. You'll really want a top notch GPU or two for that. Keep that in mind if you're planning to upgrade to that anytime soon.

Do you think that nvidia's 700 series will handle 4K? 

EDIT: Looks like it but only at around 60 Hz...

1 - 3840x2160 at 30Hz or 4096x2160 at 24Hz supported over HDMI. 4096x2160 (including 3840x2160) at 60Hz supported over Displayport. Support for 4k tiled MST displays requires 326.19 driver or later.

WoW!!  This is the first I've heard about 4K.  Any ETA on when we'll see 4K monitors?

4K UHD is a resolution of 3840 pixels × 2160 lines (8.3 megapixels, aspect ratio 16:9) and is one of the two resolutions of ultra high definition television targeted towards consumer television, the other being 8K UHD which is 7680 pixels × 4320 lines (33.2 megapixels). 4K UHD has twice the horizontal and vertical resolution of the 1080p HDTV format, with four times as many pixels overall.

already out. just price prohibitive for most. a 4k 30Hz monitor is only like 600$ CAD though it's not 10-bit.

[iceisfun]

I have good luck driving 4x1920x1080 on my 680