Hello community!

I have a radeon HD 2900pro(256bit version 512MB ram) which run at 8X pci xpress on my mobo. My mobo can't run the card higher then 8x and I believe 16x is native. Will I get more fps in games like sins of a solar empire/tf2 if I get a mobo that can run the card at 16x or is 8x sufficient?

My system is
1.9Ghz x2 brisbane
2GB DDR2 800

Thanks!

Well, since it is a 2900Pro.... I doubt it will be bottlenecked by the 8X PCI-E. Perhaps AGP will, but since PCI-E is a full duplex one compared to AGP..... No improvement. Besides, I'm guessing your CPU might bottleneck the video card especially on low resolutions.

I forgot to mention I play both games at 1650x1080 on a 22"LCD.

I agree. Toms did an article not too long ago about performance scaling with PCIe. Its under the video card section, you should take a look at it. Like stridervm said, your cpu is holding you back more than anything. If you have a decent mobo I would consider overclocking. If not, you might as well invest in a new cpu, they are rather cheap these days. Why do you run your card at 8x to begin with? Is that a mobo limitation?

Yes, my mobo can only run at 8X max. Its pretty crappy as it doesn't have much OC options. I was thinking about spending $100 on a mobo that can OC and runs 16X.

Go Intel with a 2.2ghz E2200 CPU and a Socket 775 motherboard that supports 1333mhz FSB (Go for Gigabyte or ASUS)

With this sort of setup (and an improved copper core cooler), you should be able to reach CPU overclocks in the range of 3.2ghz per core without any problems.

It'd be a cheap way of getting alot more performance out of your graphics card. I thought the HD2900 handled games quite well when I owned one... it was when I bought the 2nd card that I was left unimpressed.

If you can afford it, a new motherboard and GPU combination is a good idea. If you can only afford a new motherboard but want to overclock the CPU, then a 770 or 790 board that would allow for future Crossfire and/or CrossfireX is a good choice.

You'd be set for future decent Phenom's that way. 45nm Deneb @ 3.0 is nine months away but B3 65nm Phenoms are arriving in April, with the 2.4 gigahertz 9750's in May (plus some interesting triple core B3 Phenom's that seem to do as well as quad in games).

The biggest problem I see with going Intel right now is that you'd probably have to buy a new board next year for Nehalem, whereas there will be 45nm Phenom's (both triple and quad) for AM2+ boards like the 770, 780 and 790 series; as well as for DDR3 AM3 boards.

If you do go with an AMD Crossfire board, then be careful because there are some boards where the first PCIe runs at x16 but the second at x4. Some run at 8x if two cards are installed but the best are both x16; with a premium price besides.

Right now, the best budget AM2+ board is the Gigabyte 780G. Leaving aside the DX10 IGP, which wouldn't be needed alongside a 2900XT, it still has quite a few features. IMHO, the 780G is not just for HTPC's. I only got the cheap board I'm using now because it was not out in time and I wanted to move my CPU off of a lousy Nvidia 405 chipset board that only had 8x PCIe, plus didn't like ATI cards.

For that card it may show a slight increase in performance. All I know is that I play TF2 @1280x1024 with everything maxxed and I get an average of 150-200FPS. Sometimes lower sometimes higher(depending on map).

In all your CPU is still holding you back probably since it can't feed the data to the GPU fast enough.

If you can afford it get a new mobo and CPU. Memory wise you have enough. But a newer mobo(mainly Asus or Gigabyte) and a new CPU(X2 5000 BE or C2D anything) will result in better system performance. And at 1.9GHz the other programs are probably clogging your system up and taking resources too.

I was thinking of just getting a good am2+ mobo and doing some OC with my current CPU. I think that brisbane can reach 2.5Ghz and I may save$ not getting a better one.
I get about 25-50 fps with max setting on tf2 with 1650 res 16:10
My ram is DDR2 800, would I need different ram if I were to use the Intel with a 2.2ghz E2200 CPU ?

nvm about what I said about the oc on the mobo. I was able to reach 2475mhz on my cpu. ram is on fire and holding me back.

Ouch. Thats pretty harsh for TF2 considering it can run on even some older hardware nice. As for the memory, no you will not have to use different memory. Alll C2D, Pentium Dual Cores and Celerons based off of Core2 all use DDR2 and DDR2 800 is one of the best to use.

If you do decide to get the E2200 you can get a P35 mobo that can hit a 1333MHz FSB easily and that should push more performance out of your GPU as then it will be bery GPU limited.

The only weird thing I noticed now was that you have a 256bit version. I thought all the pros were 512bit and the HD2900GT was supposed to be a 256bit version. Well that sucks I guess. I got mine and it has a 512bit memory. When I run CPU-Z it shows it as a R600XT.