PCI-E & PCI compatibility

G

Guest

Hi all,

does anyone know if PCI-E & PCI are compatible?

That is, can I use a standard WiFi card that should go into a PCI slot
in a PCI-E 1x slot.

I assume it would never work the other way around.
 
P

Paul

No Spam <[email protected]> said:
Hi all,

does anyone know if PCI-E & PCI are compatible?

That is, can I use a standard WiFi card that should go into a PCI slot
in a PCI-E 1x slot.

I assume it would never work the other way around.

If you examine the connectors on PCI and PCI Express,
they are entirely different. PCI Express uses point-to-point
differential serial interfaces ("lanes") while the original
PCI bus is a 32 bit parallel bus with higher voltage single
ended signals shared by all PCI cards.

A PCI-E x1 slot is very short. A PCI slot is much longer.
Nothing good would happen, if somehow you were to jam
one type, into the other type of slot.

In this picture, the white slots are PCI. The short
black slots are PCI Express x1. The long black slot
is PCI Express x16.

http://www.motherboards.org/imageview.html?i=/images/mobot/motherboards/8950.jpg

Paul
 
G

Guest

Thanks

I have never seen a s pcie slot before.

I see the difference now.

What cards are available in pci-e 1x format?

Thanks
 
D

DaveW

PCI and PCI-E are NOT compatible. They are completely different standards
and electrical values.
 
P

Paul

Nospam said:
Thanks

I have never seen a s pcie slot before.

I see the difference now.

What cards are available in pci-e 1x format?

Thanks

Ethernet cards, storage cards. An important one missing,
is a sound card in PCI Express x1 format.

Go to this site, and enter "PCI Express" in the search
box, to see some samples of PCI Express x1 cards:

http://www.koutech.com/search.asp

Paul
 
P

Paul

Nospam said:
Thanks

I have never seen a s pcie slot before.

I see the difference now.

What cards are available in pci-e 1x format?

Thanks

Also note, that some of the PCI Express x1 cards
are expensive, when you compare their functions and
pricing to the older PCI cards. If you look at this
card (a five port USB card), you can see the USB chip
on the left, and a bridge chip on the right. This card
is an example of a PCI USB chip that is bridged to
PCI Express. The added cost of the bridge chip on the
card, makes the card more expensive (but not as expensive
as the price being charged for the card).

http://images10.newegg.com/NeweggImage/productimage/15-104-264-02.jpg

This Ethernet card is native PCI Express, and the small
single chip near the connector, is the only logic IC.
(The larger black thing to the left, is the isolation
transformer for Ethernet, and is not a logic chip.)
Native PCI Express chips can be smaller devices, because
PCI Express has fewer pins on the bus interface.

http://images10.newegg.com/NeweggImage/productimage/33-143-003-02.jpg

This picture, is of a TV tuner card with a PCI Express
interface. The main chip here is by ATI. I believe the
chip has both a PCI and a PCI Express interface, and the
company making the card gets to choose which of the
interfaces they use.

http://images10.newegg.com/NeweggImage/productimage/15-117-802-03.JPG

Here you can see the same TV tuner card, only with a PCI
bus interface. Using the same chip as in the last picture.

http://images10.newegg.com/NeweggImage/productimage/14-129-050-02.JPG

ATI is one of the few chip makers that puts both bus interfaces
on a chip, and allows the flexibility to make either kind of
card.

Paul
 
J

John Doe

No Spam said:
Hi all,

does anyone know if PCI-E & PCI are compatible?

That is, can I use a standard WiFi card that should go into a PCI
slot in a PCI-E 1x slot.

No, but many/most mainboards include both.

Why not use a PCI slot?
 
G

Guest

John Doe said:
No, but many/most mainboards include both.

Why not use a PCI slot?

Only 2 on mobo.

I was just wondering if I ever filled them up if pcie x1 was an option
for expansion or if it was one of those standards that never took of.
 
V

VanShania

pci-e x1 is actually slower than pci due to high latencys. Get a motherboard
that has X4 slots. there are a few AMD AM2 boards with them

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