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Is a Dell "PCI Express x1" slot the same as PCI Express 2.0?
I have a Studio XPS 8000 to which I wish to add a USB3 card. It is my understanding that the card requires a PCI Express 2.0 slot. I do not find anything in the Dell documentation stating the version of PCI Express in this computer. I have looked at the manual for the XPS 8700 - latest and greatest - and it also lists PCI Express x1. I would suspect that the 8700 would have the latest v 2.0 PCI Express.
Can anyone tell me what I have or how to determine what I have in my XPS 8000?
TIA,
Ken
theflash1932
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February 2nd, 2014 17:00
The XPS 8000 has the Intel P55 chipset, which supports PCI Express 2.0:
http://ark.intel.com/products/42690/intel-bd82p55-pch
PCI Express comes in four sizes of slots (basically amounting to data bandwidth):
x1
x4
x8
x16 (typically used for graphics)
Rule of thumb with sizes and cards: If it fits, it will work. You can put an x1 card into an x4 slot, for example. It is also possible to have, say, an x8 PCIe slot that is wired only for x4.
rdunnill
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February 2nd, 2014 17:00
PCI Express 2.0 was released way back in 2007, so it's safe to assume that your XPS 8000 is compliant.
taylorkh
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February 2nd, 2014 18:00
Thanks theflash1932,
Excellent info. I did not find anything helpful in the documents which came with the computer. I have read that the USB3 card will not function at full speed if the PCIE slot is not at Rev 2.0 so even if it worked it would not have given me the desired speed. Based on your information it looks like I am good to go so I will order the card and see how it works. A 2 TB external drive is slooooooooooow on USB2.
Ken
taylorkh
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February 2nd, 2014 18:00
Thanks rdunnill,
I did find that PCIE 2.0 came out a couple of years before the PC was built. I appreciate the encouragement. I really wanted to add a USB3 card to my PowerEdge 400SC server. I have 10 TB of storage crammed into it. However, it was built so long ago that there is no channel on the system board fast enough to run USB3.
Ken