Differences in PCI, PCI-X, and PCI-E for Windows 7

I am trying to locate a PCI-X card to be used in a HP Proliant DualCore computer to get higher resoultion on my monitor (not for games).

Some people say that PCI cards will work. Most say that PCI-E will not.

Since I am using Windows 7 and the PCI-X cards are supposed to be the fastest, how do I find a PCI-X card with Windows 7 drivers? I also heard that a card designed for XP might work in "compatability mode", but have no idea how to do this.

Will this whole thing boil down to finding Windows 7 drivers for a PCI-X card?

Dick.

PCI-X (PCI-eXtended) is an out dated, technology based on the old out dated PCI technology. PCIe (PCI-Express) has pretty much replaced PCI and PCI-X. In either case, you don't just throw a PCI-X card into your computer, you need to have PCI-X slots which most likely you do not have. PCI-X never took off in the consumer market outside of servers and mainframes.

PCIe is bar far the current fastest/best expansion connection available to computers at this time.

Didn't you just post this a short while ago

http://www.sevenforums.com/graphic-cards/260211-pci-x-video-cards-windows-7-a.html

Yes, I posted this type of question twice. My problem is the computer only has only two PCI-X slots. Since I cannot plug in a PCI-E card, how do I find a PCI-X video card that will give me a higher resolution monitor (not for games)?

Would "XP compatability" mode work for the old XP drivers? How would you do this? I bought a Radeon 9200 card but it does not have Windows drivers.

Dick.

One thing that would help, what is the exact model number of your HP?

rdsigrist said:

Yes, I posted this type of question twice. My problem is the computer only has only two PCI-X slots. Since I cannot plug in a PCI-E card, how do I find a PCI-X video card that will give me a higher resolution monitor (not for games)?

Would "XP compatability" mode work for the old XP drivers? How would you do this? I bought a Radeon 9200 card but it does not have Windows drivers.

Dick.

Click to expand...

Are there any actual PCI-X graphics cards? I see some listed on Amazon, but the pictures look like plain old PCI cards rather than PCI-X. (I believe that PCI cards are compatible with PCI-X, although I have zero personal experience with PCI-X.)

There are certainly PCI cards that support DX10 or even 11:

Newegg.com - Computer Hardware, Video Cards & Video Devices, Desktop Graphics Cards, PCI, DirectX 10, DirectX 10.1, DirectX 11

(Some of the DX9 cards have full Win7 support, but you may as well stay with the newer cards.)

The HP computer I have is a DL140 server. I have upgraded it to Windows 7 Professional, 2 1T drives, and 16G RAM. My plan is to use this in my Audio Equipment rack and a media server. This will give me some experience with storing large volumes of media, but I also need to use a reasonable high resolution monitor (In addtion to the 120 screen with a high end Sony Projector). I am sure that I will toss it all later for a much more up to date computer, but for now, I just want to see it working.

The DL140 has one full size PCI-X card slot with a riser, and another half high PCI-X slot for narrow cards.

Any help I can get will be useful.

Dick.

I believe that PCI cards are compatible with PCI-X

Click to expand...

From what I can see here,

Conventional PCI - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

and here,

PCI-X - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

and looking at the diagram of the different slots and card types, as long as it has the two notches (universal PCI, both 3.3V and 5V) any PCI video card will work.

Now with that said is this HP still in its original rack mount case (1U), or has it been transferred to a normal size case (mATX or ATX)? If it is still in the 1U case then adding a video card will be not the best as there will be no way to secure it and you will have to run it with the cover off.