PCI vs. PCI Express

[Lau]

Hi Everyone,

So here I am, all existed cause I finally found the new graphic card I want!! :)
I received it today: nVidia GeForce 6800GS by MSI. Woohoo. And surprise, surprise, well, it wouldn't be if I had read the specs entirely: this little baby uses a PCI Express slot. :rolleyes:
My mobo is about 3 or 4 years old and I know it doesn't have a PCIe slot. So my question is: is it a big problem? Could the card still use one of the PCI slots? Could it cause damage? Performance issue?

Thanks

[jcnoernberg]

no they are not at all compatible. you will probably fry the card and/or motherboard if you try it. besides, even if it did work you would get very low performance.

[hockey man]

They do make the 6600GT in an AGP 4X/8x type.

[saphalline]

You would most certainly fry the vid card and/or mobo if you tried to force it into a PCI slot! For one thing, the pin density is different on them, so a PCIe x16 vid card has more pins on its connector than a PCI slot has. The results would be quick and deadly, with a healthy amount of smoke and sparks thrown in.

If you have a mobo with an AGP 3.0 spec slot, then you could get a Radeon X1600 Pro (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102680) AGP version for about the same cost as that GeForce 6800 GS. The performance won't be as good, but you have to take what you can get with AGP. At least new AGP vid cards are still being made. This one fact alone exceeds my expectations.

[Lau]

I appreciate all the response, and I got it: PCI and PCIe ==> NOT COMPATIBLE :D I won't try that.

One of my alternative, which I have been thinking about today was to get a new motherboard. As I mentioned before, my computer is 3 years old. It could use some new hardware, and I saw some decent boards for $150-200 (WITH PCIe :) ) MSI K8N Diamond Plus Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI X16 ATX AMD (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813130037) kinda caught my eyes.

I know this isn't the correct board to ask about motherboards, but what should I be thinking about with updating it? The one I mention above is AMD, I currently have a P4... problem or not? ...

[hockey man]

Any intel CPUs are not compatible with AMD MOBOs. For us to make a suggestion based around your current hardware, we need to know what you have now. Let us know and we can work from there.

[Lau]

I started a new thread on the correct board about the motherboard issue: Here (http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?t=45226)

[sia]

I know somebody who once put a DDR SDRAM DIMM into the SDR SDRAM slot!!!11! Obviusly both mobo and DIMM were damaged. lol.

[rdhizzle]

you should upgrade your mobo/cpu/ram before buying a new vid card. If you havent opened the box yet id take the card back and get your money and then work from there for seeing about a new mobo/cpu/mem.

[rond36]

I know somebody who once put a DDR SDRAM DIMM into the SDR SDRAM slot!!!11! Obviusly both mobo and DIMM were damaged. lol.

That is not possible a DDR DIMM is longer and keyed differently than a SDRAM slot and will not fit in the slot

The same is true for PCI-E and PCI

[saphalline]

No, SDRAM, DDR SDRAM, DDR2 SDRAM, and RDRAM modules all have the same dimensions (roughly 133mm to 133.8mm in length). And it is quite possible to force a DDR module into an SDRAM slot, or vise versa. Trust me, I've seen it with my own eyes. :rolleyes:

Needless to say, the person who had done it was quite... upset with themselves. I honestly don't know how they did it - all they would say was they simply forced it in. The mobo showed no signs of cracking or anything, but the mobo and RAM had to be tossed, as well as most of the rest of the system because it was old. They never did that again! :p

[sia]

In my case that guy had broken the slot by something!!!