PCI-E Express and PCI-E Express 2.0?

[Smith]

I want to get a new video card for Christmas, so I want something that will put out at least a 720P signal so I can hook it up to my HD tv and watch movies.

I was looking around on tigerdirect.ca and I noticed there's two different types of PCI-E slots. I must be getting out of touch with this stuff cos I didn't know that. How do I know if my M2N-E has 2.0 or not?

[lynx]

PCIe 2.0 is supported from Nvidia with the Nforce 7 series, from AMD with the 700 series and from Intel with the X38 and P45 chipsets.

Consequently that means that your M2N-E motherboard does not support PCIe 2.0.

However, the output data rate isn't the same as the input data rate. For example, uncompressed RGB video at 1920x1080, 60i would take about 237MB/sec (834 GB/hour). It would be inconceivable to try to store that amount of data in native form, so it is MPEG-2 encoded (which is why you need a good graphics card). When you consider that the actual data storage requirement for blu-ray is around 15 GB/hour, including audio, you can work out that the average data rate to the card is only just over 4MB/sec and that's well within the capabilities of x16 PCIe 1.x slots (maximum 250MB/sec).

While you might want to get a PCIe 2.0 capable card for future motherboard upgrades, it will run quite happily in your PCIe 1.x slot (but at a lower speed). You won't get the potential output in some games (though that's probably doubtful too) but you won't have any problems playing HD videos.

[clocker]

And lynx again shows why he's the smartest guy around here.

Merry Christmas, cat.

[Smith]

Thanks Lynx.