[customcomp]

okie dokie, geting a new graphics card ( NEW BFG GeFORCE 7800GTX PCI-E 256MB 7800 GTX OC GDDR3 ) im concerned about it being DDR3 is that compatiable with my DDR1.

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It is not an issue...the RAM on the graphics card is separate from main ram and controlled by the GPU for use onboard.

[gerryf]

It is not an issue...the RAM on the graphics card is separate from main ram and controlled by the GPU for use onboard.

[customcomp]

good.

thank you gerryf

[customcomp]

last question ( i hope ) is PCI Express any differnt from PCI ????????

[OwNt]

Hello, customcomp.

Yes it is. PCI Express is for 1 or 2 video cards to run on single/dual channel, regular PCI is for things like modems, usb controllers, pci type cards, all around stuff like that.

-OwNt

[customcomp]

so can i use a pci express in a pci slot???????

[gerryf]

that's not exactly accurate

it sounds like you're confusing Scalable Link Interface with pci-express...Scalable Link Interface is not possible without pci-express, but pci-express does not require Scalable Link Interface. PCI Express is not so much dual channel as 2-way serial communication.....

But it is correct that pci-express and pci are different...in simple terms, PCI Express refers to a higher bandwith bus dedicated to the graphics subsystem, which is the point OwNt was got across. The PCI bus has in the past carried graphic data, but is now considered too slow.

It is more of an evolution....pci > agp > pci-express

[OwNt]

@customcomp

Think of it like this, in terms of video card performance, roughly. The #x converts to how many pipelines it can support

For A PCI/AGP Slot it goes like this:

Pci - 133MBps
AGP 1x - 266MBps
AGP 2x - 533MBps
AGP 4x - 1066MBps
AGP 8x - 2133MBps

For PCI Express it goes like this:

1x - 500MBps
4x - 2GBps
8x - 4GBps
16x - 8GBps

You can see the huge performance increase with PCI express over AGP with the above chart.

@gerryf

I meant to get the point across while dumbing it down so the average user could understand it, perhaps I didn't clarify it well enough.

As you stated, pci express can run with one card, and uses an SLI to run with two cards - (NVIDIA only - as ATI will use a bridge instead of an SLI.)
To run a second card an SLI will be in order to hook them both up via pci express. Hopefully that clarifies what I meant to state earlier.

[gerryf]

didn't mean to impugn your post....the one two card and single dual channel references just left an awful lot to interpretation...my gut told me you knew what you were talking about, but I wasn't certain the reader would see it