I know PCIe x2.0 x1 cards can be used in PCIe x2.0 x16 slots with no problems. But are there any advantages?
I ask this because a comment on Newegg suggested that there is a performance boost to doing the above in certain cases. He was using a SATA II card in an old ASUS motherboard with PCEe x 1.0 slots with a maximum rate of 250 MB/s, with this card using a Silicon Image chip which simply split the bandwidth between two ports, 125 MB/s each. He claimed that when this same card was inserted into a x16 slot, the bandwidth jumped to 165MB/s, suggesting that not only did the Silicon Image chip have some headroom, the slot bandwidth was significantly larger.
Does anyone believe there would be a performance increase for any of the following cards in a x16 slot:
- sound card
- USB 3.0 card
- wireless networking
- wired (Ethernet) networking
I would guess that there is no advantage for a sound card (Creative customer support verified that opinion) and networking would depend on the exact parameters, but there might be one for a USB 3.0 card in a PCIe x 2.0 slot because the bandwidth of an x1 slot is 500 MB/s, but the bandwidth of USB 3.0 is 625 MB/s, if I'm converting units correctly.
Of course, if Intel motherboards implemented hard limits on PCIe slots, strictly limiting them to the specification, then there could be no possibility of better performance. Anyone know?