Hi all,

I'm thinking about getting a new high-end graphics card, something from the Radeon HD 6000 or 5000 or Geforce 500 series perhaps...

So I have a GigabyteGA-P35-DS3R motherboard and I know that it doesn't support PCI-E 2.0 x16 bus interface. All these new cards specify that a PCI-E 2.0 port is required and I've even seen a specification for a PCI-E v2.1 port.

So does that mean that if I get such a new card and plug it into my motherboard, it will just not run? Or will it be recognized and run but with a significant drop in overall performance?

Please don't suggest that I get a new motherboard. I'm planning to do that sometime later but now have money saved up for a good graphics card upgrade. What should I expect given my current motherboard?

My PSU is a Thermaltake Toughpower "Cable Management" 750W. I guess it should be able to handle any card, right?

Thanks. I'll open the case and post the specs of my PSU when I find my screwdriver! I think it was around 500 watts. So are there two connections for a video card, one with the motherboard and one with the main PSU unit?

More importantly, so you say that a card like a 570 is unnecessary for 1280 x 1024 and a GTX 560 will be enough even if I max out all the other graphics settings? Hmm, that's a thing to consider.

Oh, and I'm thinking about installing the new card myself. This will be the first time I'm going to do such a thing, and I don't know much about power supply issues but I think I'm going to use the power supply they put in along with my current 8800 GTX.

Is there a possibility that it will be too much (or too low?) for a new card like GTX 570 and cause problems? Or more broadly, isn't there such a thing as the power supply letting the card run but not giving optimal performance because it's not really suitable?

Thanks for the detailed response. Right now I'm not considering upgrading my CPU (both budgetwise and I think it still has some time left) but I can spend a significant amount on the GPU.

I play all kinds of games and this includes new graphics-intensive FPS games and I like to max out the settings (well, maybe except SSAO and full AA) but the thing is that my max screen resolution is 1280 x 1024 with my 19-inch monitor so I won't need the GPU firepower for resolutions higher than that. Now with your comments I'm leaning towards a GTX 570 and checking prices. Thanks.

So I have a Core 2 Duo E8400 at 3.00 ghz and I'm planning to get a new graphics card. Since the Geforce 500 series has now come out, I'm split between 400 series cards and the new ones. Are the 500 series cards that are available right now (580, 570, 560 and perhaps 550) high-end cards suitable for high-performance gaming? Or am I better off getting a GTX 480 or something?

I'm asking this especially because I'm afraid I might not get very good overall performance with a new card because my E8400 is getting old. Should this be a concern?

Any other ideas? Anyone?

I thought the "rattling" could be due to cables or something else catching in the fans but the fact that I more often have this loud noise and also that it ALWAYS goes away on restart complicates things. I'll still take a look inside the case on the weekend.

For some time, when I turn on my computer, a really loud noise starts to come from the computer case, sometimes accompanied by some sort of rattling sound. However, there are no problems with the functionality of the PC itself when this noise is on. Then I turn off the PC and turn it on again and this always fixes the problem.

Now I'm not sure where it comes from. The only thing I know is that it probably doesn't come from the DVD drive. I did a partial dusting of the CPU fan and the graphics card fan (8800 GTX) and it sort of removed the problem for a few days but I don't know if this was just a coincidence. I checked online for typical sounds of failing hard drives and it doesn't really sound like it although there are some similarities in the sound. I have a Samsung hard drive which was bought along with the rest of the rig in April 2008 so it's not exactly at the end of its lifetime.

Any thoughts? Thanks.

Alright, but do we have many 64-bit programs right now, especially in terms of games?

And does a 64-bit CPU support a 32-bit OS?