PCIE x16 and PCIE 2.0 x16

[dajini92]

Up until this point, I've always thought that a PCI Express x16 slot in a mobo meant that only PCI Express x16 cards can be used. Likewise, I also believed that a PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot in a mobo could only hold a PCIE 2.0 x16 card. However, when I was reading through peoples' builds in the "General Hardware" section, I noticed that out of the three or four systems I read over, all of them had motherboards with a single PCIE x16 slot, but their video card they had picked out what was a PCIE 2.0 x16. Wait... what?

So I guess my question is this: If I have a PCIE x16 slot, can I use a PCIE 2.0 x16 card in it? I could have sworn the answer was no, but after reading peoples' builds I got a bit confused... I apologize if this is a common topic, I searched but couldn't find an answer to my question.

 

[Sylvanas]

PCI-E 2.0 is backwards compatible with previous 1.1 revisions- that goes for motherboard and graphics card.

 

[mhouck]

Originally posted by: Sylvanas
PCI-E 2.0 is backwards compatible with previous 1.1 revisions- that goes for motherboard and graphics card.

+1. They are compatible but there is a difference (barely) in performance with the newest cards. Toms Hardware did an article comparing performance about a month back if you want to look it up.

 

[Jax Omen]

We seriously need a sticky stating this, it gets asked at least twice a week.

 

[mhouck]

Originally posted by: Jax Omen
We seriously need a sticky stating this, it gets asked at least twice a week.

Yeah but it would seriously decrease our post count.

 

[nova2]

google and or use wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCIe#PCI_Express_2.0

threads like these should be locked, i guess