Motherboard Help, PCIe3 questions

[Missclick]

My Motherboard http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.as...xtreme3%20Gen3


my z68 gen 3 extreme 3 board says it supports PCIe3 but i only see one slot on it and it doesnt register that my GPU (radeon HD 7850) is a pcie3 gpu in the cat control center is says its a pcie 2 board... im confused.. can someone shed some light on this?

---------- Post added 2012-11-23 at 09:01 PM ----------

im using an i3 2120 as well.. from what i was reading on a forum that would cause me to only use pcie2? not sure if that helps or not.. thanks in advance

[vesseblah]

Yes. PCI-express 3.0 works on that board only with newer Ivy Bridge processor, not Sandy Bridge you have. Small print under PCIe3.0 support says:

Note: PCIe Gen3 is supported on 3rd Generation of Intel® Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs.

But it does not make any difference whatsoever. There isn't currently any graphics card available in stores that would be gimped by PCI-Express 2.0 slot, not even GTX690, so you really don't need to worry about it.

[BicycleMafioso]

This will not have an impact on your performance the slightest though, in a single card configuration since it will not realistically be able to max out the bandwidth provided by PCI-E gen 2.

[Missclick]

would it be worth it to upgrade to a better CPU then? even if its just a 3220 ivy bridge i3? *any spare parts i have go into my second computer* which sadly is still a ddr2 setup >_> so getting a new mobo and processor isnt out of the question

[vesseblah]

would it be worth it to upgrade to a better CPU then? even if its just a 3220 ivy bridge i3? *any spare parts i have go into my second computer* which sadly is still a ddr2 setup >_> so getting a new mobo and processor isnt out of the question

Upgrading processor just to make the Radeon 7850 run in PCIe3.0 mode will not gain you anything. The graphics card does not use even half of PCIe2.0 speed.

You need to go straight to i5-3570K or something similar and overclock it to have meaningful upgrade.