[capo_2k]

Hey folks. Here's the deal:

- I've gotta 780i motherboard with 3 big PCI-Express slots (PCI-E x16) for graphics cards.
- Beneath the first big PCI-Express slot is a very small PCI-Express slot (PCI-E x1), which lines up perfectly with the other ones, only it's about a quarter of the size.
- I wanna get myself a "PhysX PCI Express x1" card which will fit perfectly into this small slot.
- My motherboard insists that the GPU must be in the first PCI-Express x16 slot on the board.

So here's the issue:

- The GPU I wanna get and the PhysX card will not fit in together, unless I can put the PhysX card in one of the larger PCI-Express x16 slots.

Is this possible, or does it have to be in the small one?

Thanks for any help you guys can give.

 

[ElijahTW]

I tried throwing my PCI-Express 1x TV Tuner Card into the 16x slot before and it worked fine.

 

[capo_2k]

Cool, thanks man. Also, one more question...

This might seem a bit dumb, but: Is PCI Express x16 the same thing as PCI Express 2.0?

 

[Phil]

No. 2.0 theoretically has twice the bandwith

 

[ElijahTW]

But realistically only some of those dual-GPU cards see any difference.

 

[capo_2k]

Okay, so there are loads of different configurations:

- PCI-E x1
- PCI-E x16 1.0
- PCI-E x16 2.0
etc.

Thanks for your help.

But you know what I find annoying? Without doing a little research first, it's not clear what supports what. For example, in my motherboard manual it says everywhere that the PCI-E slots are "x16". No mention of "2.0" anywhere except for on one f**king page where you normally wouldn't look. Then there's my old 9800GX2; On the box it says "PCI Express 2.0" - no mention of "x16" anywhere! So, what the f**k? They should make this s**t more clear.

 

[masta.g.86]

Sometimes I think they intentionally do that.

 

[Princess Garnet]

Okay, so there are loads of different configurations:

- PCI-E x1
- PCI-E x16 1.0
- PCI-E x16 2.0
etc.

Thanks for your help.

But you know what I find annoying? Without doing a little research first, it's not clear what supports what. For example, in my motherboard manual it says everywhere that the PCI-E slots are "x16". No mention of "2.0" anywhere except for on one f**king page where you normally wouldn't look. Then there's my old 9800GX2; On the box it says "PCI Express 2.0" - no mention of "x16" anywhere! So, what the f**k? They should make this s**t more clear.

But wait, there's more! There's also PCI Express 4x and PCI Express 8x.

For the most part, any card should fit in any larger slot and work fine.

PCI Express 1x will eventually replace standard PCI, and PCI Express 16x and it's evolutions (2.0, 3.0, etc) will replace AGP. The second one already happened. I expect standard PCI to phase out slowly until the very end, just like ISA (stayed around until the Pentium III days at least, and even some early Pentium 4 boards had them).

I can't see 4x or 8x going much of anywhere really. With motherboard makers putting multiple PCI Express 16x slots, and still having to support the older normal PCI while incorporating newe PCI Express (1x) slots, there's just not enough room on them for the niche 4x and 8x slots.

I wonder why they just don't use only 8x and 16x then, since 8x should take most, if not all, 1x and 4x cards also, and the 16x slots would be for video cards. There's no need for three different speed variants of "normal" universal slots. That's the point, that they should be, for the most part, universal.

 

[Lasnap]

my sli config on this board is 2 x8 slots and one x16 slot for when ive got only one card which i happen to have. as for the others they do get confusing. ive got a few pci slots and one x1 slot at the top of my board above one of my x8 slots.

 

[Spyhop]

You can even mask off the 16X and 8x pins on a PCI-E video card and the card will still work in 4x mode, albeit much slower.