New to building custom pc

[disfilam04]

hey guys... im new to building pc's and i was wondering if i can get some help from you guys... Heres the specs...

Atx Case w/ 450 psu
Ecs Geforce6100sm-m Motherboard
Amd Athlon 64 x2 4800+ processor

and i was wondering, on my mobo it has a PCIe 16x slot for video card and i was researching it and it says it runs in x8 mode, so what video card should i consider using. Wouldn't the speed be cut in half? Should i still buy a PCIe x16 card? thanx guys...

[Paul Komski]

It seems to be a pretty low end board with on board video and a x16 width PCIe slot to allow one add a video card at a later stage. Why the slot only functions at x8 speeds (http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/411/2) is beyond me but there is no such thing as a PCIe x8 card in terms of physical width.