8x pci-e mobo slot with usb 3.0 card to 16x pci-e adapter for video card?

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Mike Green Spade

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Feb 5, 2014
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I'm building a rig and the slots are so close together that I won't be able to use them all if I use them as is. A large 7950 video card would cover the other slot beside it.

I'm wondering if I can run a few of these:
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/PCI-E-16X-to-1X-Adapter-USB-3-0-Cable-Enhanced-Extender-Riser-Adapter-Set-M2-/151439740079?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2342830caf

I have 3x slots, one is 16x and two are 8x. *ALL 3 run at 8x speed*

From what I've found online, a 7950 will not hit the max of the 8x line, so I'm good there.

But what I don't know is, if this usb 3.0 to 16x adapter will work, since it seems to have a 1x card for the usb 3.0, I would assume this would cap it out? However I've seen these kinds of cards in many peoples coin mine rigs so this makes me wonder if they actually work well without capping out before your video cards do?

I'm building a video rendering system so I need to make sure that I would not lose anything by using these, the plan would be to run a single 7950 with the option of crossfire in the future, it would need to be able to do this without being cap'd by the usb 3.0.
 
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Is it just me or am I missing something very big here? The connector seems to be connecting a PCI-E 3.0 X16 slot to a PCI-E 2.0 x1 slot via a USB cable.
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Mike Green Spade

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Well i know its going to fit.... but my question is more if the 1x pci-e to usb 3.0 card is going to be bottle necking the 8x slot I put it into?

I know i can plug a video card into the 16x end on the other side, but my worry is more focused on the 1x card that the usb cord attaches to, since the 16x line needs to then send that information down the usb line, into the 1x pcie card.... would this not be a bottleneck? If no, what is the point of pci-e 16x then if not for extra bandwith for information?
 
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Mike Green Spade

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Feb 5, 2014
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Yes again I understand a 3.0 usb is really fast.... I'm not doubting that.

However I'm looking at the 1x pcie slot that connects to that 3.0 and I can't help but think to myself "if my 7950 needs 16x, how is it sending all that data through a 1x card?"

Even if its usb 3.0, its still a 1x pcie card.

Do you have any links or anything that could back up your opinion of it being fine? To be honest if I'm going to invest into these and then modding my case towards using these, I'd like to know for sure by the way of facts before I did that.

I'm thinking just buying one if I can't find any information and doing a test with the one 7950 I have atm
 
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chenw

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I think it depends on the motherboard itself. I was playing around with the cards in my Rig with UD5H, and there was a configuration I tried that involved installing a PCI-E wireless adapter in the *3rd* PCI-E x16 slot, but it had a very nasty side effect of rendering my second GPU to run at X4 (because the Mobo spec said, when the third PCI-E x16 lane is populated, it will knock the 2nd PCI-E land to X4), and I could not for the life of me to get that last PCI to run at x1 speed through the chipset, so I had to do a less than desireable way of supporting my backplate-less card by tying the power cable onto part of my chassis.

Edit: forget about my comment, it is entirely unapplicable to this post, but I am very skeptical at how a PCI-E 2.0 x1 lane will be able to feed the data required for a PCI-E 3.0 x8 lane, considering the latter has 16x the amount of bandwidth as the former.
 
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blacksheep123

blacksheep123

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omfg! cant you understand what i am saying
?????

i said pci 1.1 is too fast for usb transfers

it can even handle 3.1 easily

you will have no prob
 
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blacksheep123

blacksheep123

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he thinks that if he put his usb 3.0 pci card in a 1x slot, it will slow him down :)
lol
 
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Mike Green Spade

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Well actually I wanted to know if my 7950 would get slown at all if I used it through a 1x line instead of the 16x line it was made for.

I mean if it didn't need the rest of the pins connected you'd think they would ship them all as 1x or you'd be able to snap the rest of the pins off and have it function properly.

I mean 16x is there for a reason... I don't doubt that usb 3.0 can transfer over a 1x line.. but I'm questioning how well a 16x to 1x will transfer the data from the 7950 due to it needing 16x and it going through a usb from the 16x into a 1x, seems like a massive bottleneck.
 
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