Bit of a noob PCI-E question

EddScott

EddScott

EddScott

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This is probably going to sound ultra noob but my graphics card is PCI-E and I'm thinking of getting a sound card which is also PCI-E. However, the sound card only has a very small "foot" to connect into the motherboard yet the graphics card is quite a long foot.

I take the sound card will just fit in but just doesn't use the whole slot? Or am I barking up the wrong tree?
 
There is a notch in the cards connector and a filled up bit in the lane if you get what I mean so should fit in snuggly and off you go. :)

You don't have the card yet but you should see what I mean the graphics card is the same regarding notch and connector.
 
yep, a smaller PCIE card will fit in a larger PCIE slot - you probably have a PCIEx4 or x1 card, whereas graphics cards are x16. You can usually put any PCIE card in any PCIE slot.
 
There's no such thing as a dumb question, only dumb answers!

Just to confirm what everyone else has said you will be able to use a small foot (pcie x1 probably) in any PCIe port. Have a look though as a lot of mobos have a pcie1 port built in to them. Sometimes it can be hidden if you have a big graphics card.

On my old mobo I had to get rid of it as I had 2 cards in SLI and the PCIe1 was inbetween the 2 PCIe 16 ports, unfortunatly my GFX had some sizeable fans on them so completly blocked the x1 port!
 
If your motherboard has a pci-e x1 slot (the really small slots) it would be best to put it in that. I tried the sound card in my pcie x16 slot and it reduced it to x8/x8 speeds as if i had a second graphics card, hence limiting the bandwidth available to my graphics card. Probably wouldn't make much difference anyway, but if you have a pci-e x1 slot deffo put it in that.

It did work in the pci-e x16 slot though, to answer your question :)
 
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