Asus P8Z77 PCIE slot question

[Grevard]

I was wondering if there is any diffrence between the blue or white PCIE 3.0 slots? I will be using a single GPU setup. It seems most people put a single GPU in the blue(closer to the cpu) slot. Basically the upper most PCIE 3.0 slot.

The reason I ask this is because I want to fit a pcie 1.0 soundcard into the board but I would rather not put it abover or below the GPU to try and keep both cards cooler. Or would it not hurt the GPU/soundcard to have them virtually touching eachother?

Do PCIE 1.0 cards with the tiny fin fit into the full length slots? If this is true I can just put the card in the pcie 2.0 slot at the bottom.

 

[Kenmitch]

Try the bottom pci-e slot. I've never tried it but have read multiple times that it will work with a 1x card also.

 

[Ferzerp]

Yeah, PCIe will work with whatever size slot (bigger or smaller).

Technically, if I remember correctly, in theory, you can even cut a card to fit (don't do this). If you have an x16 card, and manage to plug it in to an x1 card, it will work at an x1 data rate.

Really the safer way is to cut the slot where it hangs out, but the point is, it will work. Longer will work in shorter (if you remove the physical barrier), and shorter will work in longer.

Right now, I have a x1 card in the PCIe 2.0 x16 slot in this mobo.

 

[Grevard]

Do they even make pcie 1.0 in the regular length or are they all small?

So basically, if I get the Asus Xonar DX, which is a small pcie 1.0, I can put it in the bottom slot(pcie 2.0, 16x, black slot), and it won't be like loose or anything and work as normal?

 

[Lonyo]

It will work as normal. There's usually nothing to hold cards in place in shorter slots, only x16 slots have a catch at the far end, so basically an x1 slot and x16 slot act the same way with an x1 card in terms of holding the card.

The motherboard manual indicates that the second (middle) x16 slot is PCIe 3.0 that is basically always x8 speed. The top slot is x16 or x8 with two GPUs.
The bottom PCIe x16 slot runs at PCIe 2.0 x4 speed at most.
The two PCIe x1 slots are PCIe 2.0.

So the bottom PCIe slot x16 should be fine for any device, and probably the best one to use if you want to keep space between the sound card and GPU.

 

[Kenmitch]

A lot of MB's also share SATA bandwidth with pci-e 1x slots. Not sure about OP's board tho.