Matrox announces PCIe x1 graphics card

  • Thread starter Thread starter YKhan
  • Start date Start date
YKhan said:
Well we've seen the high performance x8 and x16 graphics cards, but not
any that work on x1 slots. Probably good for multiple monitor
workstations.

http://www.gisuser.com/content/view/6281/
Click to expand...

In principle the x16 boards should work in x1 slots, however you'll have to
butcher one or the other of the connectors to get them to fit.

In practice I'd be very surprised if this worked the way it was supposed to.
 
J. Clarke said:
In principle the x16 boards should work in x1 slots, however you'll have to
butcher one or the other of the connectors to get them to fit.

In practice I'd be very surprised if this worked the way it was supposed to.
Click to expand...

In practice, I can give one datapoint - which is that Intel ships a
motherboard riser with two PCI-E 4x slots with 8x connectors - and that 8x
cards (Mellanox IB adaptors) do work in those 4x slots (I don't recall to
what degree the speed suffered... and I'm no longer working at the job where
I could ask the coworkers involved in testing them.)
 
Nate said:
In practice, I can give one datapoint - which is that Intel ships a
motherboard riser with two PCI-E 4x slots with 8x connectors - and that 8x
cards (Mellanox IB adaptors) do work in those 4x slots (I don't recall to
what degree the speed suffered... and I'm no longer working at the job where
I could ask the coworkers involved in testing them.)
Click to expand...

Are the x4 & x8 connectors physically the same? I think x8 and x16
usually are, right?

Yousuf Khan
 
Are the x4 & x8 connectors physically the same? I think x8 and x16
usually are, right?

Yousuf Khan
Click to expand...

The spec provides for unique x1, x4, x8 and x16 connectors, fwiw.

I suspect designers tend to use x4 connectors for x1 slots, x8 for x4 slots,
and x16 for x8 slots, just to provide greater flexibility (if no higher
performance) wrt add-in cards. Of course, one needs to be aware of what's
legislated in the spec wrt "training down" a link, as there are certain
configurations that are not required to be supported...

/daytripper
 
daytripper said:
The spec provides for unique x1, x4, x8 and x16 connectors, fwiw.

I suspect designers tend to use x4 connectors for x1 slots, x8 for x4 slots,
and x16 for x8 slots, just to provide greater flexibility (if no higher
performance) wrt add-in cards. Of course, one needs to be aware of what's
legislated in the spec wrt "training down" a link, as there are certain
configurations that are not required to be supported...
Click to expand...

Hmmm.

Yousuf Khan
 
Hmmm.

Yousuf Khan
Click to expand...

For instance, a pluggable x8 agent is not required to train down to x4, but
must be able to train down to x1. So an x8 agent in an x4 slot using an x8
connector could legally drop right down to x1...
 
daytripper said:
The spec provides for unique x1, x4, x8 and x16 connectors, fwiw.
Click to expand...

The 4X slots are considerably shorter. Probably half?
I suspect designers tend to use x4 connectors for x1 slots, x8 for x4
slots, and x16 for x8 slots, just to provide greater flexibility (if no
higher performance) wrt add-in cards.
Click to expand...

We had two vendors' 2U PCI-E boxes we were evaluating; the stock Intel one
had 2 4x slots with 8x connectors. The other vendor had a regular 4x slot
in the first version of the riser we got, then an actual 8x slot.
 
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