Video Card _ PCI Express Question

[g4smart]

I'm looking into upgrading my PC with a new video card. My computer is a Gateway GT4022 with an integrated nVidia GeForce 6100 graphics card with an available PCI Express slot. I was looking on nVidia's website and many of the cards that specify "PCI Express" have "2.0" also, does anyone know if this will work with my computer?

And if not, does anyone have any examples of video cards that would work?

EDIT: my slot is an "x16".

Thanks in advance!

[Silly Gooooose]

if you've got a PCI x 16 (PCI express 16 slot) then you can run most any PCI card.

Just go to newegg.com and search for cards, and just look at the specs page. It should show

Interface
Interface PCI Express x16

I went with this card, for my 300$ cheapy comp.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814136025

If you want to spend 200$ and get a real good card, get something like this. (8800GT 512 MB)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...GeForce+8800GT

[Anozireth]

A PCI-E 2.0 card will work fine in a 1.0 slot, and vice versa. It is designed to be fully backwards compatible. I'm currently running and 8800GT (a 2.0 card) in a PCI-E 1.0 motherboard that's well over 3 years old without a problem. It's my understanding that even the very top end cards don't yet max out PCI-E 1.0, so it really doesn't matter.

[g4smart]

Thanks for the help. Now I have another question involving the "DDR". I was at circuit city getting my RAM, I was looking at video cards and asked one of the workers there about PCI slots, (since my card is "integrated", would adding a better card in the PCI slots make it better or am I pretty much stuck with the 6100? I asked since I wasn't sure how you can upgrade something integrated in the motherboard) he didn't really have an answer to that question but said "Don't mix DDR with DDR2 or DDR3."
Is this true, thus limiting my selection of cards to choose from? Or would I be good with say, one of these or even the first one that sensenmann mentioned?

[Khazrael]

these[/url] or even the first one that sensenmann mentioned?

Never had to actually do this before, but I'm pretty sure through device manager you can disable any component you want. So even though the card is still integrated into the mobo, it just won't be active. Once you have your other running, just disable the old one and you should be good to go.

[Shigan5]

As for the onboard video, device manager should do the trick but some motherboards require you to disable it in the bios as well(my first one did).

And as for mixing DDR's, theres no way you could. The motherboard is set to a certain spec. Say you have a DDR2 specd MoBo and You put in DDR3, it wont work. Same thing with DDR1.

And as for the video card, it doesnt matter as the ram is built into the video card and it wont be dealing with the mobos spec at all. Only the software will, and the software, unless built to, wont be able to discern either. So there really wont be any problems.

[g4smart]

I guess my question now is "What would be a good upgrade for a video card?" I believe my computer has just DDR (if that's the same as "DDR1" then i have that).

[Anozireth]

The DDR type of the memory on your computer has nothing to do with the DDR type on your video card. It's perfectly safe to run a video card that uses DDR3 on a system with only DDR main memory. That said, chances are a system with only DDR main memory won't be able to get the most of of a video card with DDR3.

[Shigan5]

Theres no difference. The system will seem slow because the DDR1 memory is slow, it wont affect the DDR3 at all. Other than the slowness. The only thing that will limit your video card is the PCI Slots speed, not the DDR1 memory.

[g4smart]

Ok, thanks, this clears a whole bunch of stuff up for me