Compatibility problem with PCI-E 2.0 motherboards!

[puntoMX]

ASUS is publishing some information on there site about PCI-E 1.0/1.1 cards being not compatible with some motherboards that have PCI-E 2.0 onboard.

The PCIEX16_1 slot has been designed based on PCI express 1.1 specification, while PCIEX16_2 slots adopts PCI express 1.0/1.0a specification.

As PCI express 1.0/1.0a standard is not compatible with PCI express 2.0 specification, installing PCI express 2.0 cards onto PCIEX16_2 slot will result in system fail to detect expansion cards installed on both PCIEX16_1 and PCIEX16_2 slot.”

Note: The above limitation does not apply when installing PCI express 2.0 cards onto PCIEX16_1 slot, as PCI express 2.0 is backward compatible with PCI express 1.1 standard.

[nmX.Memnoch]

The information is about 1.0/1.0a compatibility problems. From the way I read it, 1.1 appears to be fine. 1.1 has been the PCIe standard for quite some time now (~2 years).

This also appears to be an issue with plugging PCIe 2.0 cards into PCIe 1.0/1.0a/1.1 motherboards and not with plugging an older card into a newer (not yet released) PCIe 2.0 motherboard.

[jcarle]

Actually a simpler approach to the issue is simply this.

PCI-E 2.0 graphics cards CANNOT be plugged into PCI-E 1.0/1.0a slots.

That's it.

Edited August 20, 2007 by jcarle