PCI Express 2.0 card.

[likwidglostix]

I have a Dell PC that's a few years old. It's an Inspiron 580 with an Intel Core i5 650 dual core @3.2ghz, 8GB DDR3 RAM, and a GeForce GT220 graphics card. The graphics card slot is a PCI Express 2.0 x16. I get that a 3.0 card would be backwards compatible, but won't that stunt the potential of the card? I'm searching on newegg, checking the box for PCI Express 2.0, and the results are pitiful little cards.  Where can I find something more powerful? Are there other sites I don't know about? Can you guys recommend something in the $100-$200 range? I don't want to spend too much on a card for this computer, as I'd like to build a new gaming rig in a few years, but I'd like to get a little more performance out of it while I have it.

 

Thanks,

Mike

[Aniallation]

I have a Dell PC that's a few years old. It's an Inspiron 580 with an Intel Core i5 650 dual core @3.2ghz, 8GB DDR3 RAM, and a GeForce GT220 graphics card. The graphics card slot is a PCI Express 2.0 x16. I get that a 3.0 card would be backwards compatible, but won't that stunt the potential of the card? I'm searching on newegg, checking the box for PCI Express 2.0, and the results are pitiful little cards.  Where can I find something more powerful? Are there other sites I don't know about? Can you guys recommend something in the $100-$200 range? I don't want to spend too much on a card for this computer, as I'd like to build a new gaming rig in a few years, but I'd like to get a little more performance out of it while I have it.

 

PCIe 2.0 as long as it's X16 will not bottleneck any current single GPU (even 980)

 

CPU is another issue though. And depends on what PSU you have in the PC as well.

[Arty]

I have a Dell PC that's a few years old. It's an Inspiron 580 with an Intel Core i5 650 dual core @3.2ghz, 8GB DDR3 RAM, and a GeForce GT220 graphics card. The graphics card slot is a PCI Express 2.0 x16. I get that a 3.0 card would be backwards compatible, but won't that stunt the potential of the card? I'm searching on newegg, checking the box for PCI Express 2.0, and the results are pitiful little cards.  Where can I find something more powerful? Are there other sites I don't know about? Can you guys recommend something in the $100-$200 range? I don't want to spend too much on a card for this computer, as I'd like to build a new gaming rig in a few years, but I'd like to get a little more performance out of it while I have it.

 

Thanks,

Mike

All is good no bottlenecks

[xvantok]

To be honest you would be better buying a 3.0 and have it stunted then a puny 2.0 card that is maxed out. Plus when you upgrade you will be able to use your 3.0 card

[-rascal-]

I bought an USB3.0 express card from Inateck to upgrade my PC to USB 3.0 capabilities,  the card performs well and had no problems recognizing more than 1 dozen devices I tried,  transmission speed is amazing as well. 

 

PCI-E X16 3.0 and PCI-E X16 2.0, not USB 3.0.

Close. Honest mistake  .

 

On topic.

You won't see much (if any) performance hit using a PCI-E X16 3.0 card in the 2.0 slot.

Heck I'm running HD 7970's (AKA R9-280X) in PCI-E X16 2.0 slots.

 

Single-GPU cards can't fully saturate the bandwidth 2.0 slots provide -- let alone 3.0.

[alfaomega]

For an extreme example, im running pcie1.0 16x on my 750ti and have yet to see anything over 25% of the pcie bus being used. Basically you could say im usig pcie3.0 4x.

Search for video card myths part 2 on tomsharware where they actually benchmark the effect of the bus.