PCI-E -- Any PCI-E slot?

[jimmyj68]

I hear rumblings in the back of my head saying a PCI-E device can be plugged into any PCI-E slot that it will physically fit. i.e. a PCI-E one sound card will work plugged into a PCI-E 16/8/4 slot. Is this correct? I'm asking because a lot of P55 boards out there will block a PCI-E 1 connector because it sits next to the PCI-E 16 video card slot, most video cards today are double slot size units. I want to keep my ASUS Xonar Essence sound card which is PCI-E 1.

 

[aricjonho]

I could be wrong, hopefully someone will correct me if I am... but, the way I understood it was that everything is backwards compatible, and will work, but will be limited by whatever is the slowest speed.

 

[aricjonho]

From Wikipedia:

PCIe card will physically fit (and work correctly) in any slot that is at least as large as it is (e.g., an ×1 sized card will work in any sized slot)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express

 

[Dahak]

I hear rumblings in the back of my head saying a PCI-E device can be plugged into any PCI-E slot that it will physically fit. i.e. a PCI-E one sound card will work plugged into a PCI-E 16/8/4 slot. Is this correct?

Yes

 

[tcsenter]

Actually, no. There are numerous boards that only support graphics card in one (or more) PCI-E x16 slots.

 

[TJCS]

Check with your motherboard's manual. Sometimes your mb's manual tells you how to setup your PCI-e slot configurations.

 

[jimmyj68]

TJCS --- I'll be sure to check on that, thanks for the heads up. Didn't think a mobo maker would fiddle with the power or input/output on a connector.
Thanks to all who responded, I'll be more receptive to the rumblings in my head in the future- with discretion of course.

 

[TJCS]

np jimmy. PC hardware change so fast these days sometimes it's impossible to know everything.