# PCIe x16 cards functional on PCIe x4 slots?



## gauravbacklash (Sep 6, 2012)

Hello everyone. Thanks for the replies in advance. 

Do cards that have a minimum requirement of a PCIe x16 lane slot work on a PCIe x4 slot? Please forgive the noobishness........


----------



## koolent (Sep 6, 2012)

No they don't as the x16 lane is bigger than x4 lane and specially ment for GPU purpose but there are cards that work on PCI or AGP, see if you find one of those.

AGP is even older so find PCI.


----------



## StrYker_BLACK_E (Sep 6, 2012)

@OP: Yes they do work but with a lil' bit of performance decrease due to the smaller x4 lane.
Ive tried it myself on my board with a hd6850.

Btw,could you please give us the name n model of your mobo?


----------



## aloodum (Sep 6, 2012)

...
IIRC you do get riser boards that allow you to plug in a X16 card into a X4 slot



koolent said:


> No they don't as the x16 lane is bigger than x4 lane and specially ment for GPU purpose but there are cards that work on PCI or AGP, see if you find one of those.
> 
> AGP is even older so find PCI.



PCI is older than AGP 
And about the cards that support both PCI and AGp..i dont think thats possible unless some comapny came with their own version ..The only card i can remmebr know that had such support was one of those pre 2000 card comanies that went bust in the gfx card shakeup of the 2000..it actually carried two connector heads that you could flip over to fit each bus.


----------



## gauravbacklash (Sep 6, 2012)

StrYker_BLACK_E said:


> @OP: Yes they do work but with a lil' bit of performance decrease due to the smaller x4 lane.
> Ive tried it myself on my board with a hd6850.
> 
> Btw,could you please give us the name n model of your mobo?



I currently have a Mercury PI945GCM motherboard. Going to buy gigabyte ga b75m d3h motherboard. 
Let me know if a PCIe x16 card would work on my current board? And I hope it will work fine on the one I plan to buy, as I've already gone in for an HIS AMD/ATI Radeon HD7750 1GB GDDR5 card. Please advice.


----------



## aloodum (Sep 6, 2012)

^^ gaurav:  PI945GCM .. i checked the link below:
Mercury-pc.com

Yes your current mobo has a pci-e X16 (1 PCI Express x 16 slot)

Adding on your card will pci-e v2.0 while this is a v1.1 slot on the mobo..But no worries v2.0 is fully backward compatbile and there is negligible performance penalty


----------



## d6bmg (Sep 6, 2012)

gauravbacklash said:


> I currently have a Mercury PI945GCM motherboard. Going to buy gigabyte ga b75m d3h motherboard.
> Let me know if a PCIe x16 card would work on my current board? And I hope it will work fine on the one I plan to buy, as I've already gone in for an HIS AMD/ATI Radeon HD7750 1GB GDDR5 card. Please advice.



Changing platform means you need to change the processor as well.


----------



## gauravbacklash (Sep 7, 2012)

aloodum said:


> ^^ gaurav:  PI945GCM .. i checked the link below:
> Mercury-pc.com
> 
> Yes your current mobo has a pci-e X16 (1 PCI Express x 16 slot)
> ...



The card does not work on my current mobo. System doesn't boot at all. I posted that issue in another thread. Please view that and suggest something if you can. Here's the link: 
*www.thinkdigit.com/forum/graphic-cards/162445-system-doesnt-boot-if-new-card-slotted-home.html


----------



## aloodum (Sep 7, 2012)

^^^ If possible can you slot in an older gen card, maybe a pci-e 2.0 card like 8800Gt/9600Gt or 2.1 card like gt240 or any equivalent from amd stable  and see if the same boots up?
also in bios can you confirm if your PCI-E slot is a 1.0a/1.1 or is running in a 1.0a compatibility mode?
Read some cases where pci 3.0 is having compatibility issues with 1.0 version..


----------

