So I've finally decided on the
Radeon 6870 for my next card. But I'm starting to worry a little as I think my motherboard/CPU is going to bottleneck the crap out of it.
I've got a
Asus P5W DH Deluxe and a Q6600 (2.4ghz stock). The motherboard only has a PCI Express x16 1.0 slot. The 6870 is a PCI Express x16 2.1 card. Now I've read that this shouldn't be a big deal, that PCI Express x16 is backwards compatible and whatnot. But it can be hit or miss depending on the motherboard. My motherboard is pretty old and the latest BIOS update for it was October 2009 so I really doubt it has official support for PCI Express x16 2.1 cards.
I'm going to be overclocking the CPU today though to at least 3.0ghz (hopefully more), so that should definitely reduce the bottleneck, but would it be enough?
What do you guys think? Do you think the card will work in my motherboard? If it does, how much will the motherboard/CPU bottleneck it?
Other specs:
Windows 7 64-bit
BIOS version 2901
Antec 900 Case
Thermaltake 850w PSU
EVGA nVidia 8800GTS 512MB
Corsair 4GB RAM (DDR2 800)
EDIT:
[quote name='MSI Magus']Thoughts on my build? Gonna wait a few weeks on the sandy bridge obviously.
3.3Ghz Intel Core i5-2500 6MB Cache Quad-Core
Stock Intel LGA1155 Heatsink and Fan
Intel BOXDH67BL (Intel H67, HDMI, DVI, PCI-E, 5xSATA, 4xDDR3)
4GB (2GBx2) PC3 10666 DDR3 1333Mhz Memory Lifetime Warranty
1.5TB 7200RPM 32MB Cache Serial ATA300 (Major Brand)
22X LG SATA Dual Layer DVD+/-RW/CDRW w/Nero
1GB GeForce GTX 460 GDDR5 PCI-E Dual-DVI (Major Brand)
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
Thermaltake V9 Black Edition (5 5.25, 6 3.5) 4 Fans, Audio/USB
650watt Corsair CMPSU-650TX
Onboard LAN included
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio 7.1 PCI-Ex[/QUOTE]
I would say that looks pretty decent. Couple of things:
-Have you thought about getting a CPU cooler? The stock ones do the job for stock clocks, but if you plan on getting more life out of your CPU and overclocking it, you'll need a third-party cooler.
-This may not be required, but maybe get a higher power PSU? I'm sure a 650w is fine and will do the job, but your card requires a minimum of 450w and you might running at the max your PSU can handle. Maybe get an 850w? Again, probably not required.