PCI-E 2.0 card and DDR3 in slower slots?

BopNiblets

I've been thinking about upgrading from a 8800GTS to a GTX460 and from 2GB DDR2 to 4GB DDR3
(My mobo has both DDR2 and DDR3 slots: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Gigabyte-GA-P35C-DS3R-Motherboard-Review/476/3)
But the PCI-E slot is 1.0 and the memory slots are 1066MHz so my questions are:

Will the PCI-E 1.0 only slot be a huge bottleneck, not using the 2.0 capabilities?

• If I buy DDR3 memory faster than 1066MHz will it work?
  Say if I buy a motherboard in the future for a Core i5 or whatever and it supports faster RAM, is there RAM I can buy that will work for both motherboards but will just run slower in the mobo I have now?

Thanks in advance.

Overheal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR3_SDRAM#JEDEC_standard_modules

your Board supports up to PC3-8500; It will work if you buy faster, but it wont operate any faster than this.

Truthfully though, the performance gains between DDR2 and DDR3 are at the present time barely measurable, if you want to google some benchmarks. Theres not much point in getting DDR3 until you plan on a new build that demands it, like the next gen CPUs.

Monotype

Some boards will run ram faster than they officially support... or at least that used to be the case.

You won't get a huge performance hit with the PCI-E 1.1 slot. Below shows x16 vs x8 (equivalent to PCI-E x16), and the 460 should be even less of a difference.


http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pcie-geforce-gtx-480-x16-x8-x4,2696-9.html

BopNiblets

Overheal wrote: »

Truthfully though, the performance gains between DDR2 and DDR3 are at the present time barely measurable, if you want to google some benchmarks. Theres not much point in getting DDR3 until you plan on a new build that demands it, like the next gen CPUs.

I figured I might aswell go up to DDR3 if I'm getting another more RAM?
Hmmm, I bet as soon as I decide they'll start rolling out DDR4
Thanks guys.

BopNiblets

*bump*
Related question, I bought some new gear, a GTX460, 4GB's ram and a new PSU, my question is, will Windows 7 throw a wobbler and need to be installed do you guys think?

cherryghost

Shouldn't throw a wobbler. Its your mobo and sata connections that are important. Dont move them and nothing can go wrong :P

BopNiblets

Cheers!

Solitaire

I'm guessing that your mobo was one of the early P35s that didn't officially support FSB1333 mode (most did but only supported FSB1600 off the books). If you decided to overclock your CPU by raising the base clock from 266MHz (FSB1066 mode) to 333MHz (FSB1333 mode) you also increase the maximum possible DDR3 speed from 1066MHz to 1333MHz

Similarly if you somehow managed to keep that mobo stable at a bus speed of 400MHz (FSB1600 mode!) you could even use 1600MHz DDR3 modules at full speed