GTX 770 on a PCIE v2.0

[Meehael]

Hi,

I have an Asus P8H61 mobo (https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P8H61_PRO/#specifications) and I had i3-2120 cpu, until yesterday. I have upgraded my PC with i7-3770 now and have kept the same mobo. It works well so far. I also have an MSI GTX 560 GPU, and I'm thinking of upgrading it with a MSI GTX 770 GPU (http://www.msi.com/product/vga/N770-TF-2GD5.html#specification). It seems the 560 is now a bottleneck in gaming. My only concern is the version of the PCIE slot. The 770 lists PCIE v3.0, but my mobo supports only PCIE v2.0.

Do I need to buy a new mobo for the 770? If not, would there be some serious performance issues?

Thanks!

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Don't bother with a new motherboard, time and time again since the AGP days it has been shown that the cards (even high end cards) never use the full bandwidth of essentially any port. Yes I am sure someone will point to some benchmark somewhere that says there is a performance hit but I maintain that in the real world there is no practical difference.

 

[etrin]

maxpc did something on this last year and it was about 4% 8 frame difference.
Not sure if setting the pci in bios is the same as a 2.0 and 3.0 board or not.
but that is what they said they did using a pci 3.0 board

 

[DigDog]

3.0 will only give you more maximum bandwidth; the 770 wont saturate a 2.0 so there is no difference.

 

[BrightCandle]

Tests they did on the 680 (same card just slower clock speed) done 2 years ago showed that in the games of the day there was no difference at all. About the only time there was any real performance difference was in compute applications where the increased bus performance mattered a lot more.

It will be absolutely fine in a 2.0 slot, that is how I run my 680s.

 

[Termie]

Here's Anandtech's benchmarks using an HD7970, which is slightly slower than a 770: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5458/the-radeon-hd-7970-reprise-pcie-bandwidth-overclocking-and-msaa

PCIe 2.0 x16 is equivalent to PCIe 3.0 x8. Generally, it's not a bottleneck. But an H61 doesn't run at PCIe 2.0 x16, it runs at the equivalent of PCIe 2.0 x12, because it only has 6 PCIe lanes. Thus the performance will be somewhere between the benchmarks for PCIe 3.0 x8 and x4, which is to say, still OK, but I wouldn't use a card any faster than a 770.

 

[DigDog]

A high end GPU in a H61 mobo ??

*shudder*

 

[Meehael]

Thank you, all, for the answers!

BTW, I saw the chart and the difference between PCI3.0 x8 and x4 is almost unnoticeable, and in all cases >60 fps, which is the cap for my display, so I take it that would be ok in the end.

PS. on the Asus page it says that the mobo has PCIE2.0 x16, so maybe they upgraded the chipset somehow or used a different version of the chipset?

 

[TeknoBug]

A high end GPU in a H61 mobo ??

*shudder*

HAHA I share the same sentiment.

 

[Meehael]

HAHA I share the same sentiment.

Any "best buy" recommendations? I bought the mobo 2 years ago for i3-2120 cpu and GTX 560

 

[Shmee]

An unlocked i5 4670k and a z87 board would be a great upgrade. Or consider an AMD hexcore combo.

 

[Meehael]

An unlocked i5 4670k and a z87 board would be a great upgrade. Or consider an AMD hexcore combo.

I have bought an i7-3770 last week (I mentioned it in the op ). Any mobo recommendations for it (in tandem with GTX 770 or 780)?

 

[Evilviking]

An unlocked i5 4670k and a z87 board would be a great upgrade. Or consider an AMD hexcore combo.

He already has a 3770 and doesn't appear to be interested in OCing. His best bet would be picking up a z77 mobo.

I would personally try to save a little more money for a used/new gtx 780 and z77 mobo.

I recommend the mobo in my sig

 

[ShintaiDK]

I dont see the need for him to change to a Z77. Unless he directly lacks the features.

Z77 will not make the CPU any faster than H61. And PCIe 3.0 vs 2.0 in his case is maybe about 1%. So it boils down to if he needs SATA6 and USB3.

 

[Meehael]

I need minimal features, really. I usually buy mobos without an integrated GPU. I also don't need support for Intel HD Graphics. Just a sound card. What other features are there?

In the past 7-8 years, I didn't use a single PCI slot. There simply wasn't a need to. Just the PCIE for the GPU.

 

[desprado]

I dont see the need for him to change to a Z77. Unless he directly lacks the features.

Z77 will not make the CPU any faster than H61. And PCIe 3.0 vs 2.0 in his case is maybe about 1%. So it boils down to if he needs SATA6 and USB3.

Maximum only 3% difference.
Even if he running at PCIE 2.0@ 8X.

 

[Shmee]

I dont see the need for him to change to a Z77. Unless he directly lacks the features.

Z77 will not make the CPU any faster than H61. And PCIe 3.0 vs 2.0 in his case is maybe about 1%. So it boils down to if he needs SATA6 and USB3.

Oh, I did not notice the new CPU. In that case, you should be good as shintaidk says

 

[Meehael]

I dont see the need for him to change to a Z77. Unless he directly lacks the features.

Z77 will not make the CPU any faster than H61. And PCIe 3.0 vs 2.0 in his case is maybe about 1%. So it boils down to if he needs SATA6 and USB3.

Actually, I do have SATA 6 and USB 3 on the Asus P8H61Pro. It's a separate controller on the mobo, I think.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Actually, I do have SATA 6 and USB 3 on the Asus P8H61Pro. It's a separate controller on the mobo, I think.

Then there is even less reason to change motherboard

In the chipset terms, it was in relation to native support without 3rd party controllers.

 

[Meehael]

OK, thank you, all!

You have been all very helpful (and have saved me about a $150)