HD 4670 compatiblity issues

[jonloe]

heres the deal. im on a tight budget. so for christmas, im trying to get my parents to get me a new graphics card. i love COD4, and am hoping to love COD:mw2, as soon as i can get my hands on it. my only problem is that my current rig can only handle it on close to the lowest settings.

what i have now,

Pentium D 3.2ghz

2Gb corsair ram

Rio 3 motherboard

Asus X550 512mb graphics card

250 GB seagate HDD

all wrapped up in windows XP

what im hoping to get from my parents is this

http : //www . newegg . com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.292676

its a XFX HD 4670 and a corsair 400 watt power supply ( i have a puny 250 watt ATM)

after getting all my hopes up for this, i discover that my MOBO is a PCI-e 1.0a, and the Graphics card i want to get is a 2.0. after putting many an hour into trying to figure out if it was compatible or not, i came to the conclusion that everyone online likes to confuse me. half of the things i read said that 2.0 is only backwards compatible with 1.1, while the other half say its fully backwards compatible with 1.0a.

so my question to you would be:

A. is the XFX HD 4670 backwards compatible with a 1.0a PCI-e slot

B. if so, will the HD 4670 handle COD4 and COD:mw2 and make them look sexy? ( yes i know their the same engine)

C. if not, what are some good PCI-e 1.0a cards that could handle these two games?

thanks for all of your help and advice before hand,

Jon Loe

 

[tinytomlogan]

as long as you have a full length pcie slot it will be ok.

But the 4670 is still a very low card in the range mate so you are still going to have all the settings low Im affraid.

You really want a 4850 or 4870, tbh look for something used.

 

[Ghosthud1]

on a 4670 you should be hitting decent fps on a low res and highish settings 30-40fps but as tom said a 2nd hand 4850 will be much better and shudnt be expensive at all...

 

[PeterStoba]

The card will work fine in the 1.0 slot, the difference between the two is barely noticable.

The 4670 is a good card, not very low in the range at all, the 4350 would be very low in the range.

As long as you don't play at a very high resolution it will be fine.

 

[Rastalovich]

Scouting around that price range @ NewEgg, I can only see 4670, 9600 GS or GT220.

No idea which would be the better tbh.

Little bit more u can get a 9600GT (same after rebate), bit more again GT240 or 9800GT (which would be better), 4850 on offer for about the same.

Over the $100 mark comes the HD4850, GT250, HD4770.

Next better card is the 5750 @ $145.

Not much new selection out there. Might give TigerDirect or ZipZoomFly a look also.

Chances are with the cards much above $75, ur 250w psu will complain. If u have to keep the 250w, lookout for a card that needs no power plugging into it.

 

[jonloe]

thanks for all the replys!

im not one to be picky about my graphics, i dont need EVERYTHING MAXED highest res, with AA and AF. i just want it to look good. im really not that picky about resolution at all. above 1024x768 with high settings and ill be happy.

now, i hate to second guess people, but im really trying to confirm the whole 1.0a compatibility thing, because i live overseas, and what ever i order, i have to have my brother bring it back for me. so theirs no returning if it doesn't work on this one.

i shot an email off to my mobo maker, and they told me that 1.0a wont work with a 2.0 graphics card. this kinda scares me, because i really dont want to screw myself over.

and as for the price issue, im cheap the reason im getting the 4670 is becuase i found a deal that comes with the 4670 AND a corsair 400 watt PSU all for under 100 bucks, which is about the top of my price range.

 

[jonloe]

i apologize for the double post, but as ive been reading up on this topic, i found out that apparently cards work only selectively with 1.0a PCI-e? has any one had personal experiance with a 4670 on PCI-e 1.0a? honestly i just dont want to end up with a graphics card that i cant use. thanks again for all the help

 

[Ghosthud1]

if your that worried get a new motherboard/graphics card bundle...

250w should be enough for that system for now

 

[jonloe]

well, the required PSU for the HD 4670 is 400 watts... using my 250 would be pushing it.... and i would get a new bundle, im just broke are there any good cards that arent 2.0?

 

[PeterStoba]

It should work fine, get that bundle with the new PSU and GPU, will allow for further graphics upgrades in the future too.

 

[xeros]

I'm second for this question (HD4670 on PCI-E 1.0a mobo) - who has that kind of mix? Or maybe someone has HD4650? (it should be the same for PCI-E compatibility)

I've found mixed replies on hardware shops comments - most people say it works without problems on PCI-E 1.0a motherboard but I've found one person who said that it didn't work on his board.

 

[jonloe]

I'm second for this question (HD4670 on PCI-E 1.0a mobo) - who has that kind of mix? Or maybe someone has HD4650? (it should be the same for PCI-E compatibility)

I've found mixed replies on hardware shops comments - most people say it works without problems on PCI-E 1.0a motherboard but I've found one person who said that it didn't work on his board.

this is the same things ive heard. some people adamantly say yes, while others no. ive heard someone say that they have a working 4870 on a pci-e 1.0a, and ive also heard someone who had a working 8800GT, but it would really put me at ease just to know someone got a 4670 working too

 

[Rastalovich]

Just thinking in terms of the compatability, isn't the famous ABit IP35 Pro sporting a V1.0a PCIE slot ?

Sure some1 can confirm that quicker than I can.

I'd stick any of the above in that tbh.

 

[xeros]

this is the same things ive heard. some people adamantly say yes, while others no. ive heard someone say that they have a working 4870 on a pci-e 1.0a, and ive also heard someone who had a working 8800GT, but it would really put me at ease just to know someone got a 4670 working too

I've found it really depends on both graphic card bios and motherboard bios - HD4xxx can work on pci-e 1.0a if motherboard bios can support it.

For example there's Asrock 4CoreDual-SATA2 pci-e 1.0a based on the same chipset as my P4V800D-X motherboard (Via PT880 Ultra) but it supports HD4xxx pci-e 2.0 cards in newer BIOSes - confirmed by many people. It looks like mine motherboard could not handle it but since I have more possibilities under Linux I might run in after system is booted. I'm doing the same with my second graphic card (Radeon X300 - pci-e 1.0a or 1.1). Many people said my motherboard and it's chipset can't handle both graphic cards at the same time (AGP+PCIe) and it's true in BIOS and Windows but in Linux I've enabled this configuration by second driver and X-server instance binded to the BUS ID of the card.

If I'll fail with such configuration I'll probably go attack Asus for BIOS update (even beta) just like Asrock users have done (I'm going to use both Asus manufactured mobo and graphic card).

 

[jonloe]

I've found it really depends on both graphic card bios and motherboard bios - HD4xxx can work on pci-e 1.0a if motherboard bios can support it.

For example there's Asrock 4CoreDual-SATA2 pci-e 1.0a based on the same chipset as my P4V800D-X motherboard (Via PT880 Ultra) but it supports HD4xxx pci-e 2.0 cards in newer BIOSes - confirmed by many people. It looks like mine motherboard could not handle it but since I have more possibilities under Linux I might run in after system is booted. I'm doing the same with my second graphic card (Radeon X300 - pci-e 1.0a or 1.1). Many people said my motherboard and it's chipset can't handle both graphic cards at the same time (AGP+PCIe) and it's true in BIOS and Windows but in Linux I've enabled this configuration by second driver and X-server instance binded to the BUS ID of the card.

If I'll fail with such configuration I'll probably go attack Asus for BIOS update (even beta) just like Asrock users have done (I'm going to use both Asus manufactured mobo and graphic card).

so how would you go about finding out if the BIOSes are compatible? i have a Rio 3 motherboard. what would i do to see if its compatible? does it all come down to trail and error?

 

[xeros]

so how would you go about finding out if the BIOSes are compatible? i have a Rio 3 motherboard. what would i do to see if its compatible? does it all come down to trail and error?

Unfortunately it's only trial and error to check it for this board.

I've tried HD4670 PCI-E card (with other card on AGP bus inside, too) and computer booted without problems with display on AGP card but even Linux kernel doesn't see HD4670 inside - I've checked: lshw, lspci, dmesg, /proc/*, /sys/* and there's no card in PCI-E slot saw by the system

I thought it could enable it even if the BIOS couldn't.

So it looks that there's nothing I could do to make it work on this board.

It's strange that the system has booted and the fan on HD4670 is working...