Pros and Cons.

[pinghq]

I have a pcie 8x slot in my comp. I have been told to get a 8x V. card or get an adapter from 8x to 16x. I need to know what this adapter will do to the V. Card specs when I put it in. I know the speed is down but I need to know what else is affected if anything. For example what PCi express 16x card would i need to have to play Borderlads smoothly on my comp. Thanks in advance

Will i lose any of the following with an adapter from 16x to 8X:
Required for borderlands that I currently do not have.
Video RAM 256
Hardware T&L
Pixel Shader version 3.0
Vertex Shader version 3.0

 

[brandonwh64]

hmmm on a 8x slot? try a 9800GTX+ if your power supply can handle it

 

[JTS]

I have a pcie 8x slot in my comp. I have been told to get a 8x V. card or get an adapter from 8x to 16x. I need to know what this adapter will do to the V. Card specs when I put it in. I know the speed is down but I need to know what else is affected if anything. For example what PCi express 16x card would i need to have to play Borderlads smoothly on my comp. Thanks in advance

Will i lose any of the following with an adapter from 16x to 8X:
Required for borderlands that I currently do not have.
Video RAM 256
Hardware T&L
Pixel Shader version 3.0
Vertex Shader version 3.0

Wait, I'm confused here.

Your motherboard has x8 PCI-E slot and you are looking for an adapter that converts an PCI-E x16 Graphics card to x8?

If so, you don't need an adapter

x16 cards are backwards compatible with x8/x4 and even x1. In other words, they 'adapt' themselves.

Without knowing the rest of your specs it's almost impossible to advise you of a card.

Do you know what Power Supply you have?

 

[MN12BIRD]

Yeah I've never seen an adapter before because that would rise the card up and make it not fit the back of the case. You can cut the bottom of the video card PCB with the contacts to make it fit, or (easier method) cut the back of the PCI-e slot on the motherboard also to make it fit. This works because ALL PCI-e devices are backwards compatible down to 1x lane. But this is assuming there is nothing behind the 8x slot that the card would hit like a heatsink or raised capacitors.

Most of us are confused with the fact your PC only has an 8x slot? That is strange and leads me to believe it's some kind of proprietary Small Form Factor machine. If this is true your power supply will be more of an issue than the slot itself. Make sure your PSU has the continuous wattage (12v amperage) to drive the card you use. Otherwise this is all pointless. Your games will crash and you'll just end up killing your PSU or worse your video card!!

You wont loose any specs or features from the video card other than lanes witch effects bandwidth and therefore the performance of the graphics. With a bigger video card it may make a fairly big difference and actually cancel out any benefits of having that nice card to begin with. Not really sure how 8x lanes (I assume PCI-e 1.1 not 2.0 witch is only going to make it even worse!) is going to effect the average gaming video card. It might not half the performance.... but it could.

 

[xBruce88x]

so does that mean my 9600GT on a 4x pci-e 1.1 is the same as 2x pci-e 2.0? I need a new mobo.

 

[MN12BIRD]

Yes in terms of pure bandwidth PCI-e 1.1 at 4 lanes is equal to a PCI-e 2.0 at only 2 lanes since PCI-e 2.0 has twice the bandwidth per lane.

 

[KainXS]

you could also make sure their are no obstructions on the motherboard and cut a knick in the edge of the pcie slot to put in any size card you want without damaging the card, since based on what your saying, you more than likely have a crap board and want to use a more expensive card on that board.

another thing to remember that any 8800+/9600+/HD38XX+/HD47XX+/HD5XXX card get a pretty big performance hit at 4X 1.1 and lower, its like going down a series.

and theres still a hit sometimes at 8X 1.1 for some cards too.

I had that 4coredual you had and its 100% not worth buying anything better than a HD38XX/8800, that card cut my scores in half for my old HD3850 and cut the scores of my 8800GTS by about 60% when it was still working(the card), and will murder the 3Dmark score of anything that touches it.

I actually still have that board in my closet lol, locked deep and far away to keep it away from the world lol.

 

[Benetanegia]

Gladly Wizzard already tested how PCIe bandwidth affects performance and he did with the fastest single-GPU card on the planet, so my understanding is that any card slower than that will do a bit better on reduced bandwidth. The results here:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_5870_PCI-Express_Scaling/25.html

Average:

Worst case in Wizzard's revirew:

As you see, results are not so dismal at 4x 2.0 (= 8x 1.1). Overall if you are going to upgrade your mobo before you graphics card, you can get whatever card you want. You'd loose some of it's performance, but that will happen with almost every card (to a lesser extent) and the fastest card will always be faster, although for smaller difference. Once you upgrade your mobo, you will get full performance. I'd recomend something less expensive and less affected than the HD5870 for such a mobo, of course, but I wouldn't dare buying something like HD4xxx, GTX2xx or HD57xx cards.

 

[KainXS]

the 4coredual is a hybrid board so in this case its not the same, performance massively gets hit at 4X

 

[Benetanegia]

the 4coredual is a hybrid board so in this case its not the same, performance massively gets hit at 4X

Agreed, I'm talking to OP, who says 8x (and we don't know if it is 2.0 or 1.1).

 

[ToTTenTranz]

Never heard of a motherboard with an 8x PCI-E slot. I don't get what the OP wants to know, either.

 

[Deleted member 3]

Never heard of a motherboard with an 8x PCI-E slot. I don't get what the OP wants to know, either.

They're quite common, half my boards have them. Though they're mostly used for high end RAID controllers and HBA's and such. Also, many boards use x8 electric slots with x16 physical slots. Thus allowing any card to be used in them.

 

[pinghq]

Here Are two pictures.
First is the Side view into my Power edge 1900 (So their is space but i would rather have the slot fit perfectly and go with the mod.)
Second is a diagram of the Slots seen on top right of Mobo.

Hope this helps. Thanks guys your posts have taught Me alot about my options.

some specs as well...
---Power
800W non-redundant

---Uninterruptible Power supplies
500W - 2700W
Extended Battery Module (EBM)
Network Management Card

 

[pinghq]

Also a DELL rep told me this in conversation...

12/03/2009 03:08:41PM pinghq: "video card"

12/03/2009 03:09:22PM pinghq: "want to get some video on this server and was told i could do so by placing a pcie 16x on 8x slot"

12/03/2009 03:09:24PM Agent (TMPw_Patrick_189853): "I would not advise that. As the X16 slot has additional power and data connectors. If you can find a PCI8X card that will fit in the chassis. It should work without issue as I don't see a video card like that pulling large amounts of power."

12/03/2009 03:10:11PM pinghq: "pci8x very rare and i was told all pcie 16x to 8x to 4x to 1x all back compatible"

12/03/2009 03:10:19PM pinghq: "i would just lose half the speed"

12/03/2009 03:10:45PM pinghq: "but if i put a pcie 2.0 16x it would be like a 16x regular"

12/03/2009 03:11:19PM Agent (TMPw_Patrick_189853): "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PCIExpress.jpg"

12/03/2009 03:11:40PM Agent (TMPw_Patrick_189853): "That image shows PCI Express Slots, unfortunately cards are not compatible downwards."

12/03/2009 03:11:49PM Agent (TMPw_Patrick_189853): "A 1x will work in a 16x slot, but not the other way around."

 

[wolf]

He may be right, if the 8x and 4x slots have closed ends (which it looks like in your picture), you wont be able to get a full sized card into it, Some boards have open ended slots, I'll find a pic and edit my post.

EDIT: have a look at this pic, the orange 4x slot (if you look very closely) has an open end, so you can put a full sized card in it, and the rest of the connectors just hang over the board.

 

[pinghq]

So by what ur saying I can just cut my 8x slot and then I'm good right? (Also implyes he is wrong. )

 

[wolf]

Honestly I think just nipping off the end of the slot enough to make it open ended may work, but its quite a risk... since there are 4 ports maybe try it on one that would be largely unused JUST in case things go pear shaped.

Still I'm not even sure of what the risk involved would be, I'd assume nothing at all since you'd be just cutting a tiny weeny portion of plastic away, but I'd wait on more advice from this thread on that.

 

[xBruce88x]

heh, so (in terms of pure bandwidth) 8x pci-e 2.0 > 8x pci-e 1.1 > agp 8x. and if i'm right, in theory my 4x pci-e 1.1 = agp 8x in bandwidth (sorta?)

as far as cutting the plastic,... if it were me i'd try it (its only plasic) and maybe tape over the exposed connectors of the card to be safe

 

[wolf]

Well since pci-e is 250 MB/s per single link (@ 1.0/1.1) and AGP 8x is max 2133 MB/s, putting you at around 1000 MB/s for pci-e 4x, but I think that will work out around the same, as pci-e can send data to and fro in each clock, and agp can't, something like that....

 

[pinghq]

Well some one asked me about my progress so here it is.

What I did: Cut of the back end of the PCI-e 8x slot

What I accomplished: Got a 16x video card to be read and works awesome!

!Beware!: While taking the small piece of plastic blocking my goal, I broke a pin. The slot still works but i have needles in there helping the pins connect nicely to the card. So if you are doing this place computer on a well lit table and work with care. Good luck hope this helps!

Brought to you from that very same Power-edge!!