PCI Extreme?

[dantheman1261]

I had my computer custom made by a friend of mine, all working fine etc. but now I want to upgrade it. The motherboard is an Elitegroup (ECS) Kv2 Lite. When checking the motherboard documentation to find out what it supported, I see:

1 x AGP x8/x4 slot (This is the one im using now)
5 x PCI slots

This last one seems a bit vauge to me. Anyway, wanting to know if it supports PCI express, ive googled etc. Seems to me that it doesnt support it. After deciding to take a look myself before I give up, I see a marking on the motherboard next to one of the PCI slots "PCI Extreme". Now the motherboard manual doesn't say anthing about this, and I'm hesistant to just assume it means PCI Express and order a card, only for it to not work.

Not knowing much about PCI Express, the port looks the same to me as all the others on the board (leading me to believe there's nothing special about it so it isn't PCI-Express). However, there's another post somewhere (think it's on this forum) where everybody just assumed it meant PCI Express. Not sure what to do now, i'll wait to hear a reply before buying anything.

Thanks for your time.

 

[Adywebb]

Sorry that motherboard does not have PCI-E (Express) - PCI Extreme is NOT the same, it is where you use software to enhance the bandwith on older PCI cards.

 

[itsme]

PCI And PCI-E are not the same? and your board will not support PCI-E according to the
Specification

CPU
Socket 939 for AMD Athlon™ 64/ Athlon™ 64 FX processor.
High-performance Hyper Transport CPU interface.
Support transfer rate of 2000/1600/1200/800/400 mega-transfers per second.

CHIPSET
VIA® K8T800 Pro & VT8237
North Bridge: VIA® K8T800 Pro
South Bridge: VIA® VT8237

MEMORY
Dual-channel DDR memory architecture
4 x184-pin DDR SDRAM DIMM socket support up to 4 GB
Support DDR400/333/266 DDR SDRAM

EXPANSION SLOT
1 x AGP 8X/4X slot
5 x PCI slots

STORAGE
Support by VIA® VT8237
-- 4 x Ultra DMA133/100/66 devices
-- 2 x Serial ATA devices
RAID0 & RAID1 configuration

AUDIO
Realtek ALC655 6-Channel audio CODEC
Compliant with AC'97 2.3 specification

LAN
VIA® VT6103L 10/100 Mbps Fast Ethernet PHY

REAR PANEL I/O
1 x PS/2 keyboard & PS/2 mouse connectors
4 x USB ports
1 x RJ45 LAN connector
1 x Parallel port (LPT1)
1 x Serial port (COM1)
1 x Audio port (Line-in, Line-out, Mic-in)

INTERNAL I/O CONNECTORS & HEADERS
1 x 20-pin ATX Power Supply Connector
1 x 4-pin ATX 12V connector
1 x FDD connector supports two 360K~2.88MB FDDs
2 x IDE connectors
2 x Serial ATA connectors
2 x USB 2.0 headers support additional 4 USB Ports
1 x Front panel switch/LED header
1 x Front panel audio header
CD in/ AUX in headers
CPUFAN/CASFAN connectors

SYSTEM BIOS
Award BIOS with 4Mb Flash ROM
Supports Plug and Play 1.0A, APM 1.2, Multi Boot, DMI
Supports ACPI revision 1.0 specification

FORM FACTOR
ATX Size (305mm*244mm), 6 layers

 

[dantheman1261]

Sorry that motherboard does not have PCI-E (Express) - PCI Extreme is NOT the same, it is where you use software to enhance the bandwith on older PCI cards.

Ok thanks very much. Looks like ill have to stick with AGP then.

And thanks also itsme, even if your reply seemed a little sarcastic which I'm not sure if you meant it to be .

 

[Waynos_Face]

You can get quite cheap motherboards now, so you can still upgrade to PCI-E.

 

[itsme]

Ok thanks very much. Looks like ill have to stick with AGP then.

And thanks also itsme, even if your reply seemed a little sarcastic which I'm not sure if you meant it to be .

sarcastic! Me no way I am never nasty I will joke rather than that have a look at the top rated comics on this site.
1st Murdoch 2nd Itsme 3rd TC Etc:

Ho and welcome to the mad house

 

[Waynos_Face]

Whats your budget for upgrading?

 

[dantheman1261]

sarcastic! Me no way I am never nasty I will joke rather than that have a look at the top rated comics on this site.
1st Murdoch

2nd Itsme

3rd TC

Etc:

Ho and welcome to the mad house

Thanks

Whats your budget for upgrading?

Not much, probably <£100. Basically, just looking at new memory and graphics card as the processor is ok and there's not much call to change anything else. If you can show me a real bargain that will fit a socket 939 processor then i'd take a look . Thanks

 

[Waynos_Face]

What graphics do you have at the mo?

 

[dantheman1261]

NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700VE (AGP). Its a 256MB card.

 

[Waynos_Face]

Hiya mate,

Have done a bit of looking around and its seems theres only really two options, get some new RAM and a new AGP graphics card or replace most of the components.

But personally i think that the DDR 400 RAM is way too overpriced and in 6 months time or a year etc you might wanna run a program or game thats gonna need more than a single core processor and 400Mhz RAM, i personally think its better to replace now with prices being quite cheap and get a decent budget system, than replace a few things now and then replace a few more later.

I know you said £100 or less but cheapest i could for a decent budget system is £149, but you get;

AMD Dual Core CPU @ 2.5Ghz £39.70
2GB Corsair XMS2 RAM @ 800Mhz £30.15
Nvidia 256Mb 8600GT £43.46
MSI AM2 Motherboard £29.25

That was priced up at Scan.co.uk, you can probably knock a few quid off shopping around, or get less/slower RAM, or lower end GPU.
I understand though if you are on a tight budget, but i think this would be the best way to go. Plus you will make a few quid selling off the parts you replace.