hi, i'm going to buy a new computer (the first one that i'm gonna assemble by myself, or just assemble at all really) and i have found pretty much all the parts that i need... but i just wanted to be sure that it'll work together (it'll cost me about 3750 american dollars or 20000 danish krones, so i wouldn't be pleased to see it burn up the first time i "press any key to continue") i'm especially worried about the gpu as i dont know that much about those guys, but i have found one that should atleast be able to run tetris pretty smoothly... there is just one little thing that i'm unsure about!
the gpu needs to be connected to a pci-express 2.1 x16 slot, but my mobo has only got pci-express !!2.0!! x16 (2.0 instead of 2.1) and i know it sounds noobie, but can my mobo use the 2.1 gpu? it's a small difference but i dont wanna waste 750 us dollars on a gpu i can't even plug in...

by the way (all) the parts i'm gonna use are:
Sapphire Radeon HD 5970 2GB GDDR5 (the gpu)
ASUS Rampage II Extreme (the mobo)
Cooler Master HAF 922
Cooler Master Silent Pro M1000
Intel Core™ i7 Quad Processor i7-975
Kingston DDR3 HyperX T1 1800MHz 6GB
WD RE4-GP Enterprise 2TB
Lite-On Blu-Ray Writer DH-2B1S-15C (if you cant find it online its just a drive that can read/write blu-ray, dvd and cd)
D-Link 11n PCI DWA-547 EU (i'm gonna wait abit before i get this but it still needs to fit in)

You should be fine. I believe the difference is internal. The card will fit. Someone kick me if im wrong here....

BTW, looks like your putting together a pretty serious rig there. You should post some futuremark benchmark results or something similar when you have it all hooked up. I'd like to see what that puppy can do.

must be tax time for you or you've got some serious $ do spend! i agree that is a serious rig you're building and i second the motion for benchmark results!

have fun with that one...it's gonna scream!

Helluva rig to play Tetris on.

PCIe 2.1 is like a beta version of PCIe 3.0: A 2.1 slot has the same speed as a 2.0 slot, but offers support for the management used in the newer 3.0 slots. IMHO it won't make a difference with the setup you have there, but if it doesn't cost you much extra and if it doesn't interfere with your other components, why not get a more up-to-date mainboard?

Anyway, sweet rig.