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Do you use a PCI-e x1 slot?

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I finally saw something for which I would actually want a 1x slot today: an OCZ RevoDrive. Yes, it looks grand!
 
TV Tuner Card
USB3.0 Card
WiFi Card

Just because you can't find a use for something, doesn't mean others won't...
 
VboxxComm Cat's Eye ATSC TV Tuner

and pretty soon possibly a

Bigfoot Networks Killer 2100 NPU

since 1/2 of my onboard NIC's are dead and the last one is flaky.
 
BrightCandle said:
I think USB 3 has in many ways filled the space where a lot of expansion cards used to be. USB has sufficient bandwidth to cope with a lot of the usage scenarios that these small slots used to do. However you wouldn't find me recommending an external sound card.
Click to expand...
external sound cards can actually be vastly superior to internal cards in terms of sound quality because you remove them from that EMI nightmare, the downside being latency, although that can always improve


Synomenon said:
TV Tuner Card
USB3.0 Card
WiFi Card

Just because you can't find a use for something, doesn't mean others won't...
Click to expand...
TV Tuner and WiFi can be done well enough via USB (if not better due to convenience, or even a gigabit NIC for that matter), especially once you have USB3.0, which any modern motherboard will include.
 
Extra NIC in a x1 slot and a serial card in a PCI slot. I'll have to update the PCI card next upgrade cycle, a Haswell board probably won't have PCI or RS232. 😛
 
WhoBeDaPlaya said:
Man, that nforce2 just keeps on trucking 😱
Still have a soft spot for good 'ol SoundStorm.
Click to expand...

Yeah, this is in my newer gaming rig (nForcer 7 - 790i), which has PCI-E.

I still use the nForce 2 as my daily browser, though.

I guess I'm not surprised no one has said they have an Ageia PhysX PPU in their PCI-E 1x slot.
 
Yup!
4DpQb.jpg

http://hacksbyalfa.tumblr.com/post/17465743003/hackintosh-friendly-dual-gigabit-nic
 
fffblackmage said:
USB 3.0 add-on card. I don't even really use it, and I don't have any USB 3.0 devices.
Click to expand...

That's exactly what I use one of my slots for since my primary media storage drive (mp3, video, projects, etc...) is an external 2TB. The speeds with USB3 are absolutely necessary so I can FRAPs all day long. 🙂

I've considered needing a WiFi adapter, but never bothered with it on my desktop since if I can't ethernet I just tether the phone for decent USB-modem speeds.

Having extra PCI slots in general are necessary unless you're always upgrading to the absolute latest and greatest. There will always be newly improved on-board systems that you can simply use a PCI slot to supplant having to upgrade your entire platform.
 
janas19 said:
Sorry guys, but thus far, it sounds like x1 slots are pretty marginal - aside from enterprise setups.

So for a desktop PC, don't see the need for one. Unless I just need extra audio channels.
Click to expand...
PCI-E 1x slots are basically there to replace PCI slots. They are far easier and cheaper to route on the motherboard, physically smaller and much higher performing (250MB/s to 1GB/s depending on PCI-E version, versus 133MB/s for a common PCI slot).

I don't really get what it is you're trying to accomplish with this discussion. Are you trying to justify the continued existence of conventional PCI? Why wouldn't there be a need for a general purpose expansion port with decent performance in a modern computer? Expandability is one of the main advantages of having a regular PC. What would you propose that we'd have instead of PCI-E 1x?

As for the original question: I use PCI-1x for an ASUS Xonar DX (soundcard) and for a TP-Link 450Mbps triple-channel wireless NIC. Given the fact that conventional PCI support is slowly fading, I'd never spend any money on such cards these days.
 
On my work computer I have an 802.11n wireless card in one of my PCI-e 1x slot right now. In a system I built for my cousin I put a parallel card in one trying to get her old HP laserjet 4 working for her.
 
bunnyfubbles said:
external sound cards can actually be vastly superior to internal cards in terms of sound quality because you remove them from that EMI nightmare, the downside being latency, although that can always improve

......
Click to expand...

Is latency still a problem with discrete soundcards with PCI-E? I thought it was an issue with Creative cards stemming from their inability (laziness?) to fix their poor pci bus mastering implementation(snap crackle pop) - all the way to the x-fi series.

Regarding sound quality - onboard sound is way way better than it used to be and the recent realtek DACs are rated similarly to the x-fis. Theres one rmaa test which showed a small/marginal improvement of the xfi over a realtek.
http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-373-2.htm
A big advantage of a soundcard would be better opamps(vs integrated) to drive good headphones.
 
Actually it's time to do away with PCI altogether. With the increasing popularity of mini-ITX boards this will happen sooner rather than later. Then you'll need PCI-e x1 for the various reasons already mentioned.
 
I might actually go with one of those if I go with a high end speaker set up. Right now I use head phones for almost everything. So a nice internal sound card like the two I mentioned work very well for that with less clutter.
 
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