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Video card question

R

RobH

Charter Member
I will be purchasing a new video card and have a few questions please.

My computer has slots for PCI, PCI Express X 1 and PCI Express x 16. Do either one of these have an advantage over the others? I just don't understand which one would be better to get.:help:

Also, I think I know the answer, but want to double check. My RAM is DDR2. I do have to get a card with DDR2 only, correct?

Thanks
 
If you have the PCIe x16 slot go for it. The x1 or x16 refers to the number of "lanes" between the two or more vid-cards when used in a multiple slot motherboard...and will relate to the size of the slot too. The x16 slot will fit pretty much any PCIe card so if you've got it then go ahead and use it.
A little more info (or confusion factor) in this Wiki article...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express

I'll suspect that you've got a second PCIe slot on your board that is x1. I can't see any reason that you'd be using that one since for a gaming system the few x1 vid-cards that are still available are pretty low-powered. The most common use for x1 is for RAID cards, SATA cards, other expansion cards, and low-end vid-cards.

The type of RAM used on a vid card has no relation to the RAM on your motherboard. You can use a DDR3 card on your board.
 
As far as I know there are no video cards for the PCIe 1x slot. PCIe video card slots are 4x, 8x, or 16x.
 
Actually, there are or have been quite a few low-end vid cards available in x1 format.
Gf8400GS, Gf7300GS, and Matrox P690 are three that I've seen personally. I know ATi makes a few x1 cards too but I don't know the numbers right off hand. They're primarily sold as "upgrades" to those lousy on-board vids in many of the brand-name budget machines.
They're nothing you'd want to consider using for a gaming rig...but all three of those are quite a bit better than many of the on-board vid chipsets out there if for no other reason than to get away from that "shared RAM" issue where on-boards use system RAM for vid RAM.
 
Thanks a lot for the help folks!!:ernae:

Very glad to hear I can use other than DDR2, since there seem to be more choices for DDR3.
 
Moparmike said:
Actually, there are or have been quite a few low-end vid cards available in x1 format.
Gf8400GS, Gf7300GS, and Matrox P690 are three that I've seen personally. I know ATi makes a few x1 cards too but I don't know the numbers right off hand. They're primarily sold as "upgrades" to those lousy on-board vids in many of the brand-name budget machines.
They're nothing you'd want to consider using for a gaming rig...but all three of those are quite a bit better than many of the on-board vid chipsets out there if for no other reason than to get away from that "shared RAM" issue where on-boards use system RAM for vid RAM.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info, I was not aware that they were for the 1x slot. I knew they were low-end, budget cards and not suitable for gaming. Also, some of those low end PCIe cards will use system RAM as video RAM. I remember reading some reviews on the 7300 line up and there was a "buyer beware" warning about 7300's advertising 256 or 512MB of RAM, but only half of that was actually on the video card.
 
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