Regular PCI vs PCI Express?

Question

I want to buy a USB 3.0 card. All the ones I see are PCI-E. Where they plug in, the tab is really short. I have a Dell, maybe 5 years old, and it doesn't have short slots, it has regular long PCI slots. Can you plug a PCI-E card into one of these long slots? Or do newer computers have shorter slots?

Answer 1

There's not much point. USB 2.0 can max out a PCI slot under real-world conditions. You wouldn't gain anything by having a USB 3.0 card.



It would also be awfully hard to adapt a USB 3.0 controller to a PCI port because PCI can only operate in one direction at a time and the bus is shared rather than point-to-point. The USB protocol permits slots to be reserved by USB devices, and there's no good way to implement that on a shared, unidirectional bus. I don't think anyone is likely to bother even trying to solve all the problems this creates.



See, the device can limit the amount of data it's willing to accept from devices connected to its USB ports. Because it offers them slots. So, on a PCI-Express port, it can simply not authorize more slots than the bus allows. But on a PCI port, what happens if it authorizes a slot, data arrives, and the PCI bus is in use in the other direction or for another device? In principle, the controller would need unlimited buffering or data loss would occur, in violation of the USB spec.



In short, your system is not ever going to support USB 3.0.

Answer 2

Pci Vs Pci Express

Answer 3

The PCIe x1 slot is a bit faster than a PCI slot but the boards are not compatible. you cant use the PCI slot with a PCIe x1 card. USB 3.0 is faster than the PCIe x1 slot so plugging in the card only allows you the option of using a USB 3.0 device and cord but you won't get USB 3.0 speed. Newer mother boards have the PCIe x1 and now PCIe x4 slots. You can use a USB 2.0 slot and cord with a USB 3.0 device but it will only have USB 2.0 speed.

Answer 4

Computers made in the past 5 years (especially Dell budget systems) probably have only 1, or NO PCI-express slots...



You cannot use a PCI-Express device in a regular PCI slot...it just wont work

Answer 5

New computers have those shorter slots.



PCI-E slots are deeper than PCI slots, so no it wouldn't work.

Answer 6

You CANNOT plug PCIe into PCI, period. Don't even try it. Newer computers have 1x PCIe slots for that sort of thing.

Answer 7

No. The slots are entirely different

Answer 8

you will no longer see lots distinction, purely a delicate bottleneck, yet no better than human beings crossfiring 2 of them and purely having the 2d card artwork at x8... PCIEx16 works on x8 lanes and PCIEx16 2.0 works on x16 lanes...

Answer 9

how can I know?