PCI Express 2.0 vs 2.1 vs 3.0

**Pablo 54** · 03-21-2012, 11:09 PM

Big deal or not? I am considering moving my two 470's to my dedicated folding machine and replacing them with one 6870 or, if i can swing it, a 7870. The card would be for my system in my Sig below (x58 MOBO with a 950 chip). I am assuming I am nowhere near bottlenecking my system.

**PP Mguire** · 03-22-2012, 12:45 AM

3.0 8x would be around 2.0 16x. Anything 2.0 8x or 16x would be fine for any of those cards.

**Joshua_Mahr** · 03-22-2012, 01:43 PM

I would think going from 2 470's to a 6870 would be a downgrade. I would go the 6950 route much better card. Plus you could mine on the 6950 at 400MHash/s... Just food for thought.

**PP Mguire** · 03-22-2012, 08:53 PM

2 470s is in the 580 range. I think a 6950 would still be a pretty big downgrade.

**Pablo 54** · 03-22-2012, 09:22 PM

The heat the 470's are kicking off is starting to get to me a bit. Just looking for a cost effective alternative to two jet engines parked next to me a good part of the day. I always assumed ATI/AMD were better on heat then the Fermi's?

**PP Mguire** · 03-22-2012, 09:24 PM

Originally Posted by Pablo 54

The heat the 470's are kicking off is starting to get to me a bit. Just looking for a cost effective alternative to two jet engines parked next to me a good part of the day. I always assumed ATI/AMD were better on heat then the Fermi's?

I can't speak for the 6 or 7 series, but the 5850 I have does get pretty warm.

**Blacksmith1** · 03-22-2012, 11:24 PM

the gelid ICY vision coolers work well on the 400 series with the added bounus that afterawards the card is already set up to use a universal waterblock.