Whast The Best PCI-E X16 Graphics Card?

Question

ok, before i start here are my specs

Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3 iP35 mobo

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0 Stepping (2.4GHz 1066MHz)

4GB OCZ DDR2 800MHz

Zotac 8800GT 512MB DDR3

500GB Hard Drive

Hp dvd-rw drive

620W coolermaster modular PSU

Vista Home Premium 64 bit

HP vs17e 17"monitor

now, i have a PCI-E X16 (1.1) slot on my mobo. I already have the 8800gt which runs great. But im wondering. What is the BEST card available on the market today for the 1.1 slot, that will not bottleneck the computer.

also is the the PCI-E 2.0 X8 the same as PCI-E X16 1.1???

thanks

Answer 1

We have nearly the same computer except I have an 8800GTX.  You'll find that the "best video card" costs just as much as the rest of your system.  You'll be happy with the 8800 gt, right now, it's the best bang for the buck.

Answer 2

the 8800 ultra by nvidea is the best pci 16x card ever

however only the most powerful graphics cards even come close to using all of the bandwidth of pci 2.0 so you are probly only very slightly bottlenecked

pci e2.0 8x is slightly less than pci 1.1 16x

Answer 3

hi kamran

          well its a tie between the nvidia gtx280 and the radeon HD4870,however both have their specific strengths and any of the two would turn any pc into a amazing gaming rig

           the difference with the newer pci-express 2.0 standard is the bandwidth,pci-express 2.0 doubles the bus standard's bandwidth from 0.25 GByte/s to 0.5 GByte/s, meaning a x32 connector can transfer data at up to 16 GByte/s in each direction.

           PCIe 2.0 is backward compatible with PCIe v1.x. Graphic cards and motherboards designed for v2.0 will be able to work with v1.1 and v1.0. In some cases it is possible that a PCI-E 2.0 card will not work correctly on a PCI-E 1.0a slot. This is only limited to certain video cards.

         so working on the above information a pci-express version 2.0 card running at x8 would equate to round about the same as the version 1.1 card running at the full x16 speed

         most of the pci-express 1.1 cards released over the last 18 months should run great on a standard pci-express 1.1 slot,as will most version 2.0 cards since they are reliably backwards compatible

         one tip though kamran,dont look too deep into graphic card specs,they can become extremely confusing and by the time you have sussed them out the technology has changed anyway

           a crackin website for all things "graphic cards" is gpu review at http://www.gpureview.com/,it lists every card(agp and pci-express 1.1/2.0) since the days of the old 3dfx voodoo cards and also the ati rage pro

             any problems let me know

                    good luck kamran !