How do I fit a network card with a physical x4 slot into an x1 slot?
How do I fit a network card with a physical x4 slot into an x1 slot?
I'm looking at quad port 2.5Gbe Intel PCIe cards. These cards seem to be mostly x4 physically (usually PCIe gen 3) whilst I have a PCIe Gen4 X1 slot, which is more the theoretical bandwidth that the card can support. The card needs at the most PCIE Gen 3 X2 == PCIE Gen 4 X1 in terms of bandwidth.
How do I fit the card into a PCIe x1 slot? Won't it lose performance if all the pins are not connected to the physical PCIe connector? Is there a PCIe x1 riser that the community likes that is somewhat affordable?
Thanks
Yea you may lose performance or may not, depends how the chip works on the actual pcie card. (Even if the slot has more than enough bandwidth at x1)
You can easily do a performance test after plugging it in though. Typically even an x8 interface will work with just x1 pcie connectors just slower. Even if that x1 interface is several generations later and has more bandwidth than that x8 needs lol
some ramblings of why just having the physical slots doesn't always mean ___ can be found on this completely unrelated repo: https://github.com/magic-blue-smoke/Dual-Edge-TPU-Adapter (might be in an issue thread too unfortunately but he has more info here on how bandwidth works at that level than any other sites)
If you don't want to risk modifying the slot, try one of the cheap PCIe risers on amazon and send it back if it doesn't work. You will need a case with a couple of extra slots under the motherboard in order to fit the riser in there though.
It will run slower, but that probably won't be an issue unless you plan to max out all 4 ports simultaneously.
Even maxing out the ports won't be a problem. Even 6 gigabit ports don't saturate a PCIe Gen 3 X1 slot in terms of bandwidth. But will the card work at all if all the physical pins are not connected electrically to the slot?
I cannot see any decent PCIE X1 to X16 risers on amazon. Everything is USB based which I don't want
I don't think you do.
A x1 will fit in a x4 but not the other way around.
How would I do it then? The card doesn't exactly need PCIE gen 3 X4, at the most it needs PCIE Gen 3 X2 == PCIE Gen 4 X1 in terms of bandwidth.
Pretty sure if you put a PCIe 3.0 card in a 4.0 slot the slot will drop to 3.0, and 1 PCIe 3.0 lane probably isn't going to work great with a card meant for 4 of them.
The card only needs PCIE Gen 3 X2 == PCIE Gen 4 X1 in terms of bandwidth. I was hoping to fit it into the slot since it meets the bandwidth requirements
If your card has an x4 pinout, then it probably needs the additional bandwidth. Plugging it into an x1 slot (if it was possible) would slow down the network traffic. Get a better motherboard with an x4 slot on it so you can use the hardware you want. or find something else that will fit your computer.
Honestly even the 1Gb quad port card I have requires an x4 slot, although I saw some dual-port 2.5Gb x1 cards on ebay. Maybe you could just use two of those?