Windows 7: PCIE3 that much better than 2.0?

It's about time for me to pick up a videocard, and I currently have a i5 2500k with 8gb of ram on a 68z mother board. A budy of mine won a mobo over the summer and since he isnt into building any more he gave it to me. My current board only supports PCIE 2.0, and the other board supports 3.0. I'm worried about damaging my CPU changing boards, and it would be an unnessessary risk.

I was looking at the GTX 560 Ti 2048MB GDDR5 PCIe 2.0 x16 Video Card if I keep the board I have in it. I would like to stay around 200 if there are any suggestions.

Other that you breaking the Chip or bending the PINS there is not that much of a risk, Just ensure your thermal paste is even when reapplying it.

Good luck.

PCI Express 2 and 3 are compatable with each other. It will just default to the speed of the PCIX slot or the GPU, whichever is slowest.

But, current Gen3 Graphics cards can not even saturate the bandwidth of a PCI 2 slot, so there really will not be any difference in performance.
I would just grab the best GPU you can afford and go with it regardless if its a PCI 2 or 3, or which board you choose. At this point in time it makes no performance difference. Likely, the next generation of GPUs will not either. But after that, it very well may.

In regards to the CPU, just be careful and be aware that switching the motherboards will require a clean install of Windows, to prevent any conflicts or issues.


What board is the new one?

2% is what I'd say if a number should be given.

That of course I'm running a 7970 and fps diffs are huge enough to be visible.

It's not enough to justify the MUST UPGRADE thoughts. However, a better board will give better overall performance and as long as you touch a metal part of your chassis and in short, ground yourself, be careful, be gentle, be patient. There is absolutely close to zero chance you'll damage the cpu. I'll be glad to help you out if you want some sort of guide to uninstalling and installing a cpu.

lol,there was a time i was also scared to touch my CPU but then i got a sandy bridge and found out it didnt have any pins or needles that could be damaged so nothing to be worried about.
And as everyone keeps saying,the difference is not huge,2% at most. But what i have a problem with is,they use such high GPU's that can easily ace any benchmark test available these days like the freaking 3GB 7970 or something. What i WOULD be interested in is seeing a 7770 work its magic on a pci 2.0 and 3.0 slot. THAT would produce MUCH better and clearer results no?
As for the motherboard,You have to understand,"new is better"...well in most cases. Mention the motherboard model so we can be a bit more sure. And in 200$ try 7850 or 7870 for PCI 3.0. Im also trying to switch to AMD GPU's as they have MANY more games that prefer them i.e AMD chips.

I know theres a slight performance gap between PCI 2 and and 3 but thought it was only when using multiple GPUs.
With just a single GPU no diffrence.

Perhaps Im mistaken.

Either way its insignificant.

You'd need a beefy x2 card running surround resolutions to notice any difference - even then, the difference would only be a few FPS.

Single Gpu, low res - no issue.