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BadDNA

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6547

January 8th, 2017 08:00

Graphics card -- PCI3 card in a PCI2 slot ?

Hi All

I got a nice freesync monitor during the holidays and would like to use the capability.

My xps-8910 has a pci2 slot but all the graphics cards use a pci3 slot.

Can I put one of these pci3 graphics cards into the pci2 slot?

Are there pros and cons for doing this?

speedstep

9 Legend

 • 

47K Posts

January 12th, 2017 09:00

PCI-E 2.1 or 3.0 cards will not have issues.   PCI-E 1.0 and 2.0 cards may be too slow to work at all aka OLD Geforce 8800 for example.   PCI-E 2.1 and up has a higher power profile and is faster exponentially from 1.0 and 2.0 bus.   Same is true for conventional PCI 2.0 and earlier with 5v cards.  The additional power requirement is what usually gives issues with new cards in old bus.

The additional speed of the bus is a problem for OLD cards in the new bus.  This is why some TV tuner cards etc DO NOT WORK and WILL NOT EVER WORK in PCI-E bus.  They are so slow as to not enumerate when plugged into the bus.  People want to use cards for 25 to 35 years and this is not happening no matter how much they complain about having to buy new cards.  PCMCIA has been abandoned entirely.  Thunderbolt is the new accessory bus which is being slowly adopted. ONLY 3.3 v  or universal PCI cards are supported with conventional  PCI 2.3

PCI-E 2.1 is the crossover version that usually works both ways.

For single-lane (×1) and 16-lane (×16) links, in each direction:

  • v. 1.x (2.5 GT/s):
    • 250 MB/s (×1)
    • 4 GB/s (×16)
  • v. 2.x(5 GT/s):
    • 500 MB/s (×1)
    • 8 GB/s (×16)
  • v. 3.x(8 GT/s):
    • 985 MB/s (×1)
    • 15.75 GB/s (×16)
  • v. 4.0(16 GT/s):
    • 1.969 GB/s (×1)
    • 31.51 GB/s (×16)

 

DELL-Lijo J

532 Posts

January 11th, 2017 13:00

Hi,


Welcome to our community. Firstly, congratulations on getting a new monitor. Unfortunately, you’ll not be able to use a PCI3 graphics card onto a PCI2 slot.

Dan-H

1.2K Posts

January 11th, 2017 14:00

the PCIe x16 slot in the 8910 is version 3.0 of the PCIe. The answer from DELL-Lijo J is not correct.

Now, that said, some of the AMD cards may not work in the 8910 but it is not due to the PCIe version of the motherboard.

Dan-H

1.2K Posts

January 12th, 2017 12:00

@BadDNA can you post the exact monitor you are using?

Dan-H

1.2K Posts

January 12th, 2017 12:00

The specific question not answered. Will an AMD card that is FreeSync capabile work in an 8910, and if so which one?

FreeSync is AMD's flavor of nVidia's GSync that adapts the screen refresh to the actual refresh rate of the card to avoid screen tearing.

So, the question is, will AMD Radeon R9 FuryX, or Radeon R9 390X or Radeon R9 290X etc cards work in an XPS 8910.

It has nothing to do with the PCIe v2 or v3 as all the AMD cards that support FreeSync are  PCIe x16 Gen 3.0, and the graphics card slot on the 8910 is the same.

I've read some AMD cards do not work, but I haven't bought an AMD card in years so I don't know.

speedstep

9 Legend

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47K Posts

January 12th, 2017 19:00

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