the little 2 inch pci looking slot

[velocci]

hi there, when you see a PCIe slot, you usually see a 2 inch long slot next to it. what's it for?

 

[fishmahn]

Umm, not sure - a picture would let me guess more accurately.

First guess is you're talking about the socket for the card that switches it between x16 single and dual x8. Could be mistaken.

Mike.

 

[velocci]

and example is at:

http://www.asus.com/products4.aspx?l1=3&l2=15&l3=226&model=744&modelmenu=1

its the one to the right of the blue PCIe slot.

some boards have two of them, for example:

http://us.dfi.com.tw/Upload/Product_Picture/expert1.jpg

 

[Mayiko]

They are PCI-E 1x slots.

 

[fishmahn]

Mayiko has it nailed. They're PCI-E x1 slots.

Mike.

 

[velocci]

what do you put in those slots?

 

[fishmahn]

PCI-E x1 cards of course. :lol:

They replace regular PCI cards. For now both types will be on mobos. In the future (in a few years) PCI cards will go away and PCI-E will replace it.

Mike.

 

[Mayiko]

There is not much that goes in these right now. They are kinda like the PCI-X slots that are on a lot of server mainboards. They are good for things like raid cards and ethernet adapters. Good luck finding things to go into them though. Not a lot out there. This is way most motherboards have both PCI-E and legacy PCI on them.

 

[Rugger]

Would be nice to find some sound cards in X1...

 

[Mayiko]

Would be nice to have a lot of things in those slots. Hope they don't sit empty for too much longer. Maybe the PPU's will care advantage of them.

 

[velocci]

i'm sure in the future it will be as popular as the AMR slow is now.

 

[Rugger]

Yet ANOTHER card they want us to buy for our systems...i something like the Havok physics engine beats the hardware solutions...

 

[Crashman]

These guys are wrong on that particular board, because that particular slot is an x4 slot. x1's are even shorter.

x4's will likely be used for 8-port and greater SATA cards, SCSI cards, and multi-port gigabit ethernet cards. The problem is, many card makers think x8 will be the more common standard, hence you see a lot of x8 cards where x4 would serve the purpose over a wider market.

x1's will be used for most of what standard PCI slots are being used for now. TV tuner cards, network cards, 2-4 port SATA cards, etc.

x1's work in x4 slots, x1 and x4 work in x8 slots, so it makes sense for Asus to put an x4 slot there since it also supports x1 devices.

 

[Mayiko]

My bad, that is correct. I just took another glance at it and that is a 4x slot. Same problems though. Not much support for them, though that is getting better.