What are PCIe x1 Slots Used For? | 8 PCIe Devices for x1 Slots

in this video i will attempt to explain what a pc x1 slot on a motherboard is used for now we'll talk about what it is what it looks like and what devices should you plug into these slots if you learned something of value from this video i would appreciate a like and a subscribe i will first start by giving a bit of a brief introduction to what pci lanes slots and version is this would help you better understand what pci x1 slot is and its uses okay so for starters know that all motherboards have pci slots and they come in various sizes and configurations such as x1 x4 x8 and x16 slots pcie is basically the protocol that is used to connect high demanding add-in cards such as graphics cards wi-fi cards m.2 expansion cards video capture cards etc to your motherboard to essentially upgrade the capabilities of your pc depending upon what motherboard form factor you have you can have a single or multiple pci expansion slots an x1 slot is generally found on atx and micro atx motherboards here you can see a typical atx motherboard standard atx motherboards are large and have several pci expansion slots atx motherboards can easily offer 2 to 3 x1 slots now here you can see a micro atx motherboard these are smaller than atx motherboards but offer a reasonable amount of pci x1 slots finally you have the smallest mini itx boards as you can see here these motherboards offer only a single pci slot which is of x16 size in other words a typical mini itx port does not feature an x1 slot at all so now let's take a closer look at the x1 slots here with me i have an atx motherboard with three xbone slots and two x16 pcie slots the x1 slots are colored in white and these three are what i will focus on in this video i will leave the x16 slots for another video so for starters note that the number one after the letter x and x1 describes how many pci lanes the slot has let me tell you here that understanding what pci lanes is a very useful concept for any pc builder think of a pci lane as an information highway that allows data sharing between devices attached to the slots and with the cpu and the rest of the pc hardware now the amount of data a pci slot can handle depends upon two things firstly it depends upon the pc i lanes a slot has and secondly it depends upon the version of the pci standard of the motherboard itself in other words the more pcie lane the slot has the more information it can communicate an x1 slot is the smallest slot on a motherboard and thus it has the least amount of pci lanes a slot can have which is 1. an x16 slot as you can see here is the largest and it has the highest amount of pci lanes which is 16. also as i alluded to earlier the amount of data a pcs lot can handle also depends upon its version so much so that with every new version the amount of data each lane can handle doubles have a look at this table you can see here that a pci x1 slot conforming to version 3.0 has a max bandwidth of 0.985 gigabytes per second the same x-men slot if conforming to pci 4.0 version would have doubled the bandwidth which is 1.969 gigabytes per second the pci version of the slot depends upon the model of the motherboard here with me i have a fairly old motherboard that only offers the much older pci 2.0 motherboards these days offer the newer pci version so coming back to the x1 slot at hand being the smallest pci slot with the least bandwidth in a given motherboard configuration these ports are intended for handling devices that do not generate a lot of data this includes the following devices on number one we have the wi-fi network cards wi-fi network cards are perhaps a very common pci card that you would find in a desktop as the name suggests they add the ability for your desktop motherboard to connect to wi-fi networks they do not generate a lot of data as such the bandwidth and x1 slot provides is more than enough for a wi-fi card next at number two we have the ethernet network cards ethernet network cards add lane capability to your system they are categorized by how much bandwidth they can carry over the network 1g or network cards with one gigabits per second max transfer rate require an x1 slot the more powerful 10g or 10 gigabits per second network cards require an x4 slot conforming to version 3.0 moving on to number three we have video capture cards video capture cards are often used by gamers who stream this card captures the signals from your screen and turns them into digital data that can be streamed live or stored in your computer for editing the slot a video capture card requires depends upon the resolution it can encode full hd video capture cards require an x1 slot confirming to version 3.0 4k video capture cards require an x4 slot conforming to pci version 3.0 you can see here two separate models from the same company elegato the one on the left is a full hd video capture card and requires only an x1 slot the one on the right is a 4k video capture card and requires an x4 slot again you can see the trend here the more data a device generates the more pci lanes it requires so a 4k card requires more pci lanes compared to an fhd video capture card on number four we have dedicated sound cards dedicated sound cards as the one you see here also require an x1 slot again these do not generate much data now most motherboards do have a sound card built in this motherboard for instance has sound card built in but audio fields often choose to get these dedicated sound cards to improve the sound quality of the audio now take note that these cards can get fairly expensive at number 5 we have the tv tuner card tv tuner cards basically turn your pc into a tv you can watch cable tv and also record your favorite channels with these cards next at number six we have the sera expansion cards sera expansion cards as the name suggests add more setup ports to your pc so that you can connect more hard drives on number 7 we have the usb port expansion cards again as the name suggests they add extra usb ports to your pc some allow you to add more usb type a ports while others allow you to add usb type c ports finally at number 8 we have the pcie riser cards they are also called splitters as they split one pci slot into many more here you can see one x1 riser card split into four x1 slots make no mistake here though increasing the pci slots using the riser does not increase the amount of pci lanes you have the amount of pci lanes the pc has are limited and are determined by what cpu and motherboard you have in addition to that the split slots can only have a maximum bandwidth of the host slot meaning if an x1 slot version 3.0 slot splits into four x1 slots this will not increase the original bandwidth to four times the x1 version 3.0 lane the bandwidth across all four split slots combined will remain 0.985 gigabits per seconds which is the bandwidth of the original x1 slot so there you have it i believe or i rather hope that i have covered the topic in detail and have given you a good overview regarding what an x1 slot is and what devices it can be used for as always i would appreciate if you can take a fraction of your time to like the video if you learned something of value and also to subscribe to my channel see you in the next video

Channel: PC Guide 101

Views: 86,190

Keywords: what are pcie x1 slots used for, what are pcie x1 slots, pcie x1 slots, x1 slot, pcie lanes, what are pcie lanes, x16 slot, motherboard, custom pc, pcie version, pcie speed, pcie x1 speed, wifi card, network card, sound card, video capture card, tv tuner card, SATA expansion card, usb expansion card, pcie card, pcie riser card, x1 vs x16 slot, custom pc building, uses of pcie slot, what is pcie, pcie slots, how many pcie lanes do I have, pcie x1 card, gaming build

Id: nHYQ0-waYZ4

Length: 8min 7sec (487 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 05 2022