PCI EXPRESS

[jigsaw]

Im loooking at motherboard from intel, and for video they give PCI EXPRESS.. what is this? Is this better than AGP? Different? Suckier?
Here is the MOBO im looking at
http://www.intel.com/cd/channel/reseller/asmo-na/eng/products/platforms/desktop_components/boards/media/index.htm

D945GNT
tell me what you think

[Lenny]

PCI-express is newer and offers much more bandwidth/power to the component it's interfaced with than AGP.

The newer/future graphics cards use/will use this interface and will most likely replace AGP very soon if it already hasn't.
But keep in mind that most of the newest graphics cards out today still haven't used all the bandwidth available on the AGP 8x bus.

[jigsaw]

Where in the fuck can I get a PCI EXPRESS vid card?

[Topaz]

www.3btech.net
www.newegg.com
www.pricewatch.org

[Eric]

http://www.tigerdirect.com

[jigsaw]

I have no idea what a decent pci express card I should get for gaming? I dont want to spend too much, but what are good things to look for? Whats a good gaming card?

[jigsaw]

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1476856&CatId=0
is this any good?

[MyndFyre]

If your budget isn't really limited, wait for the NVidia 7800s to come out with SLI and PCI-Express.

[tA-Kane]

If I recall correctly, SLI must scale both PCI-E connections down to 8x speed to work properly. That kind of defeats the purpose of having a 16x port, IMO.

[Lenny]

If you're budget basically had no limits, a pair of 7800GTX's would be perfect

But even if the PCI-E connection had to be scaled down for SLi, there should still be more than enough bandwidth available for both cards. 

[Topaz]

6600GT at the very least.

[jigsaw]

whats sli? can you have both sli and pci-e cards? explain this is all new to me... pros cons etc...

[Stealth]

My new box has a Radeon X800XL PCI express card in it, works very nicely. They're graded just like AGP video cards pricewise -- you can spend anywhere from $100 or so to the sky. I spent $184, $300 - 10% off coupon - $100 gift card at Best Buy.

In the midrange the best card is afaik the GeForce 6600GT, like Topaz recommends.

Be aware that most of the Intel motherboards (if not all) that support PCI Express also require Intel's new LGA775-socket processors, so make sure you get one of those bad boys instead of a standard Socket 478 P4. The LGA775 chips are numbered with a 3-digit number and a letter, ie 530J.

SLI is an nVidia technology found only on nForce-chipset motherboards that takes two PCI Express graphics cards and links them together for better performance. Apparently it works, and provides a decent performance boost, but be aware that if you want to use it you have to buy two PCIE graphics cards and make sure that the motherboard you choose is SLI-compatible.

[Lenny]

It struck me that you got a great deal on that 800XL, until you mentioned the gift card.