Originally posted by: Matthias99
Originally posted by: Randybob
Something that's had me confused of late is motherboards that claim to have two PCI-Express x16 slots, but one of them is only 4x or 1x electrical. Why do they even call it an x16 slot then? Why don't they just call the slot by the speed it actually functions at?
Basically, think of it as a slot that can fit an x16 card, but only runs at x1 or x4 speed.
All PCIe devices, in theory, are supposed to be downwards-compatible to lower speeds (although if the bandwidth of the connection isn't high enough, the device may not work well).