Compatibility with HD 3850

[maverick786us]

One of my friend is using Intel D 945 GCL Mobo. He wants to use HD 3850 for graphic, cuz its onboard graphic sux.

http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/d945gcl/sb/CS-026625.htm

This mobo supports PCI Express X16 cards and HD3850 supports PCI 2.0 x16. So will it be compitable with this mobo. If not which card do you recommend that will best suit for this mobo?

Thanks in Advance

 

[cc2918]

I believe all if not most of pci 2.0 cards are compatible with pci x16 slots

 

[Gorankar]

Yes, current cards are backward compatible. No loss of performance with that card either due to using the old pci-e bus.

My 3870 worked just fine on a NF4 mobo which has the old pci-e spec.

 

[maverick786us]

Thanks a lot. What is the difference between PCI Express 16X and PCI Expresss 16X2? The motherboard has support for PCI Expresss 16 and this card is 16X2

 

[Gorankar]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express

A quick read, but it will tell you what you want to know. Though not exactly the same, look at it the same as going from AGP 4x to AGP 8x. A transfer speed, and amperage increase that very few current cards will notice.

 

[maverick786us]

He rather purchased Palit Radeon ATI 2600 Pro. If I compare it with my Palit HD 4850 both have same RAM (512), processors have almost the identical clock speed (around 600Mhz) the only difference I've seen is 2600 has GDDR-2 RAM and 4850 has GDDR-3 and then former is 128bit and later 256.

I have yet to discover the major peromance difference between these 2 cards.

 

[fatedstranger]

GDDR-2 < GDDR-3. 128bit < 256bit.

Buy lower specs, get lower performance. Unless he's fine with that. I own a 3850 and it's been worth it. For $100 I can play most any game, which some exceptions, at decent, playable rates.

His choice, though. If he thinks ATI 2600 Pro is the way to go.. well, he'll hopefully figure things out eventually.

 

[Atl530i]

As long as it is not pci-e 1.0a then he is set. I see that he went with a different card anyway, but I figured I'd throw that out there.

 

[maverick786us]

GDDR-2 < GDDR-3. 128bit < 256bit.

Buy lower specs, get lower performance. Unless he's fine with that. I own a 3850 and it's been worth it. For $100 I can play most any game, which some exceptions, at decent, playable rates.

His choice, though. If he thinks ATI 2600 Pro is the way to go.. well, he'll hopefully figure things out eventually.

It wase'nt his choice. Over here 3850 is more than twice expensive compared to 2600, and his was an old rig, his budget was not more than 70$. Anyways he didn't review about 2600. The shopkeeper fooled him by framing it to be one of the advanced card.