PCI Express 3.0 for Sandy Bridge? Will 10' Mac Pros be left behind?

[jjahshik32]

Curious if something next year the 2010 Sandy Bridge Mac Pros are released with the PCI Express 3.0, will the newer GPUs that support 3.0 not be compatible with the current 2.0?

I know the 3.0 is backwards compatible but will it scale down the performance of the 3.0 cards in the older Mac Pros by then?

 

[Pressure]

Not at all.

Graphic cards are hardly limited by bandwidth in an 16x PCI-Express 1.0 connector.

The limiting factor is probably going to be something else, like memory bandwidth, processor power or, most likely, software.

Next year the original Mac Pro is 5 years old. I see no reason why they would still be in tears over the neglect they have faced and come to the realization that technology moves onwards (sometimes in weird manners when it revolves around Apple). The 2008 Mac Pro is probably also getting the boot by then but at that time it will also have had 3 years on its back.