GeForce 6800 PCI vs. PCIe

[lleff]

Hello all,

I need to upgrade our desktop's video card, as my husband is a gamer. I purchased a GeForce 6800 card to replace the 5200 card, but find that it requires a PCIe slot. The existing video card is in a PCI slot (it's blue, if that helps) which has a different pin arrangement than a regular PCI slot (properties say the card is in PCI bus 1). But the card won't fit there, either.

Is there some sort of an adapter which can turn either of these PCI slot types into a PCIe? I've looked around at several GeForce 6800+ cards, and they all seem to require either PCIe or AGP (neither of which this computer has). Are there any cards of this speed which do not require PCIe or AGP?

Thanks in advance for any guidance you can offer.

 

[paparazi]

lleff
I'm afraid you have a problem, without an AGP slot you are stuck with an older PCI card and you already have one of the fastest available which admittedly is just not up to modern gaming requirements.
PCI-e is a completely different and much more modern interface and unfortunately there are no adapter options.

I know this might sound pretty drastic but your best and cheapest option would be to upgrade your motherboard and by the sounds of it (reading between the lines) yours is an integrated micro ATX motherboard.

I have written down two options by Asus depending on the socket type, both have an 8X AGP slot which with allow a graphics card upgrade to the fastest AGP cards which was either Nvidia's 6800 or ATI's X850 series.

P4P800-VM for Intel CPU's with socket 478 or the Asus A7V8X-MX SE for socket A 462.
You need to establish which socket your current CPU is and the size of the motherboard (usually motherboards without an AGP slot are micro ATX)

Unfortunately to go to PCI-e option will either require your current setup to be the later Intel Socket 775 or AMD 754/939, if it isn't one of these you would have to add a CPU and possibly memory to the upgrade list and that will start to make things very expensive.
Other things to consider:
A high powered graphics card will use more power so you need to check your PSU is adequate (400watts plus for top AGP cards)
Heat: again check to see if you case is adequately ventilated (a powerful graphics card creates lots of additional heat in the case)
Post back with more information
Martin

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[lleff]

Hello paparazi,

Thanks for the very helpful information. I just took a flashlight to the motherboard and it's basically a Dell relabeled board, so you may well be right about the micro ATX origin.

It's been some years since I swapped out a motherboard (and then with assistance), and the computer itself is three years old. The ASUS board connectors for keyboard, mouse, etc. also look like they may not fit with the existing case (they may go up beyond the opening for such connections, but hard to tell via online photos). So I'm probably better served by just waiting a bit and getting a new system at a later date.

I'm sure I'm not the first one to observe the symbiotic relationship between gaming and hardware. The folks at Bethesda must own a lot of stock in hardware companies.

Thanks again for the help.

--LL