PCIe bandwidth (and upgrade) problem

[Jurrunio]

I recently cleaned up the house and found a few old, unused PCs gathering dust. After finding out bits of them that work, I ended up with something like this:

 

MB: MSI G41M-P33 Combo

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400

GPU: Gigabyte GTX 275 w/ 896Mb VRAM

HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7.2k RPM 500GB

PSU: Cooler Master 500W (new)

 

The thing is, the ethernet port on the motherboard is just good for 100Mb/s, which makes the internet connection unbearably slow (I'm used to 1Gb/s, which is what I have in other computers). I hope a 1Gb/s PCIe Ethernet card can solve this. However, my board only has 1 PCIe x1 and 2 PCIe x16 (all Gen 1.0) while the chipset (G41) only supports 1 PCIe x16 (Gen.1). I couldn't find any data about PCIe lanes supported by the Q9400 (probably doesn't matter, I don't know), so I'll assume 1 PCIe Gen.1 x16 is all I can use. This makes me worry that putting in an Ethernet card will take up the limited bandwidth my graphics card needs.

I plan on buying a used GTX 970 because the price is just about USD 170, and I will reuse it in future upgrades. I play MMOs only at the moment, so I don't use much CPU power and it sits below the GPU in my upgrade list.

 

So, should I buy an Ethernet card (about USD 10) or just bear with the slow internet connection until I buy a new motherboard and a CPU (saving money for these two will take a couple of months)?

[bgibbz]

GPU is supported by CPU pcie Lanes, it should work fine to add in a NIC. 

 

 

Intel is such a troll, the one page in the spec document of the Q9400 that contains PCIe info is missing

 

Data Sheet