Video card questions?

[ingeborgdot]

I am building another machine and want to swap video cards.  The newer machine is just for certain things and I want to take the video card I have from my other machine I built in Dec. and put it in my newer machine because my older machine is for more heavy duty things.  It is a 7900 GS PCIe and the new board will have PCIe 2.0.  Will that work in this board?  If so, what would be a good card to use for my board now that is the old standard PCIe under $125?  Will the new 2.0 standard work in my board or is it best to look for a card that is of the old standard 1.1? 

[Bill]

I don't know the answer but I would ask the motherboard maker if the PCIe is compatible with the earlier standard.
My guess is that it will be.

Bill

[ingeborgdot]

What do these choices look like?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130380

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130377

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130379

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814129112

[ingeborgdot]

How important are the stream processors?
The visiontek 4850 has 800 where many of the GTX and + have only 112.

[Carskick]

PCIe 2.0 is both forwards and backwards compatible, so you can pretty much ignore it. I have a PCIe 2.0 8800GT in a non PCIe 2.0 board, and it works fine. It probably doesn't make much of a performance difference if any, except maybe in really high end cards and/or SLI.

When I compare video cards, I almost completely ignore specs, and I look at benchmarks in games that I play or might play. It seems to give a much better idea of what to expect, as specs can be misleading.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341&p=13

Here are some game benchmarks with cards in the range you are looking at. The 9800GT is missing, buthe 9800GTX is very similar, usually only beating the 9800GT slightly. Go through the various games, and base your decision on price to performance on games you are interested in.