Does my motherboard support PCI-E 2.0?

[StevenNevets]

http://us.dfi.com.tw/Product/x..._TYPE=INFINITY&SITE=US




This confuses the crap out of me.
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Expansion Slots
2 PCI Express x16 slots
- PCIE1 slot operates at x16 or x8 bandwidth.
- PCIE3 slot operates at x2.
1 PCI Express x1 slot
3 PCI slots
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I'm aiming to get a single high-end video card for gaming before the year ends.

I'm not going to punt this over to the Motherboards forum since it has evolved in to a general PCIe question, but please make sure you create topics in the right forum in the future.

-ViRGE

 

[NoStateofMind]

No its not, but PCIe 2.0 video cards are backwards compatible with PCIe 1.0 slots.

 

[StevenNevets]

Originally posted by: PC Surgeon
No its not, but PCIe 2.0 video cards are backwards compatible with PCIe 1.0 slots.

And there's no/little performance difference?

 

[BassBomb]

Originally posted by: PC Surgeon
No its not, but PCIe 2.0 video cards are backwards compatible with PCIe 1.0 slots.

Its compatible with 1.1 slots not 1.0 AFAIK

 

[StevenNevets]

Originally posted by: BassBomb

Originally posted by: PC Surgeon
No its not, but PCIe 2.0 video cards are backwards compatible with PCIe 1.0 slots.

Its compatible with 1.1 slots not 1.0 AFAIK

Eh!
Is mine 1.1 then?

I don't know how to tell. I don't understand these specs, wish it were just as simple as PCIe.

 

[Oyeve]

Geez, this bring back memories when we discussed AGP 4X and 8X.

 

[BassBomb]

That board is one of the first gen pci-e boards, so it might just be pci-e 1.0

Maybe someone on the forums with NF4 board can chime in if they have a G92 card working on that

 

[BernardP]

Here is the best info I have found on PCI-E 2.0 backwards compatibility:

PCI-SIG or Peripheral Component Interconnect Special Interest Group is the industry consortium responsible for the PCI and PCI Express specifications.

Digging on their web site, I found some information on the PCI-E 2.0 FAQ's Page

There are specific statements about backwards compatibility:

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The PCIe Base 2.0 specification supports both 2.5GT/s and 5GT/s signaling rates, in order to retain backward compatibility with existing PCIe 1.0 and 1.1

Q5: Then PCIe 2.0 must be backward compatible with PCIe 1.1 and 1.0?
A5: Yes

The PCIe Base 2.0 specification supports both the 2.5GT/s and 5GT/s signaling technologies. A device designed to the PCIe Base 2.0 specification may support 2.5GT/s, 5GT/s or both. However, a device designed to operate specifically at 5GT/s must also support 2.5GT/s signaling

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I don't see how this can leave room for PCI-E 2.0 not to be compatible with PCI-E 1.0 if the specifications are adhered to.

So it appears that if some PCI-E 2.0 videocards are incompatible with some PCI-E 1.0 motherboards, it's because of an incorrect/incomplete implementation of the PCI-E 2.0 specification in the videocard, or a motherboard that doesn't fully conform to the PCI-E 1.0 specification.

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: BassBomb
That board is one of the first gen pci-e boards, so it might just be pci-e 1.0

Maybe someone on the forums with NF4 board can chime in if they have a G92 card working on that

NF4 should be fine. AFAIK, the only chipsets that actually have issues with PCI-E 2.0 cards are the first-gen VIA PCI-E chipsets and whatever chipset(ULi?) those DDR1/DDR2 hybrid Asrock boards use.