using those pci-e slots

[bwanaaa]

it would be nice if there was a way to convert those useless pci-e x1 slots into pci slots. i found this:

http://translate.google.com/translate?u...=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools

is there anything for real that people are using easily?

 

[Peter]

Of course you can bridge PCIE back to PCI - the PLXtech 8111 chip shown on that product does exactly that.
The photo reveals the fundamental problem: Height. You'll need "low profile" PCI cards for the assembly to fit into a normal case.

If you desperately need to use many PCI cards, then why not buy a board that has lots of PCI slots? You (still) have the choice to do so.

 

[Peter]

What I'd expect to happen more, as PCI cards start to disappear from boards, is card makers slapping the PEX8111 onto existing designs to convert them from PCI to PCIE ... in case there is no native PCIE chip to get the job done.

 

[thestain]

PCI needs to be replaced by pci card makers with PCI-e, but even if they do.. when you are running two double wide gpus in sli or crossfire.. you only have one or two pci and at most one pci-e slot open anyway..

since cards face down.. be nice to see an extra pci and pci-e above the graphics cards imo.. having slots that won't be used does not make much sense either.

Asus really needs to redesign its to 590 chipset board.. m32 as your options for either pci or pci-e are pretty limited to one pci-e and one pci slots.. also two sata ports are blocked in SLI..

Out

 

[bwanaaa]

for the reasons noted by others (sli design, double thick video coolers, etc.) motherboard space is at a premium. I know there are productas that plug into a 4x pci-e slot and have a special cable coming out the back that connects to the backplane of another box that houses the pci cards. kind of expensive but if you have a lot of $ invested in pci sound cards (think lynx) or possibly a slew of cards from national instruments (for example whose job it is to monitor chemical processes in real time or monitor the outcome of particle accelerators) then it's kinda hard to throw all that stuff out.

regarding the space argument, my antec case has an inch of free space between the card and the case. so that homemade adapter in the picture above would work- i just dont know where to get it.

regarding getting a board with a lot of pci slots, there arent that many good overclockable ones that accept amd 939, have sata, and 4 usable pci slots when the pciex16 video slot is occupied by a double thick video card cooler.

 

[acegazda]

I'm pretty sure the only cards you can use right now for pci-e x1 are usb cards and sata expansion cards anyway...
anyone know about pci-e x4?

 

[Peter]

I've seen SATA, network and TV cards in PCIE 1x. PCIE 4x is popular with storage controllers and multichannel gigabit ethernet cards. We've all seen PCIE 16x for graphics.

For other popular topics for expansion cards, e.g. Firewire and USB, there simply aren't any native PCIE controller chips just yet - so what should cards be built from?