1xPCIe Video cards

[Mercutio]

Where are the 1x PCIe video cards?

Does a Radeon x1050 really NEED an extra 15 PCIe lanes to operate?
Does a Geforce 7100?

Are there secret things we can do with all the 1x PCIe slots on our motherboards besides put USB faceplates in front of them?

 

[Buck]

SIIG makes a variety of x1 cards that offer some helpful expansion, such as FireWire 800 and eSATA. Matrox makes the G550 x1 dual-head video card, which can drive two 19" LCD digital displays at 1280 x 1024 each. One of these Matrox cards with two Samsung 940BX displays would work great for a programmer or financial institution.

 

[Mercutio]

I am thinking more generally about the fact that there are a lot of truly video low-end cards that are sitting on the highest of high-bandwidth interfaces on a given PC.

Why make a card hog a bunch of PCIe lanes it can't even begin to use?

 

[MaxBurn]

Are the extra lanes just picking up more power to run the card and allow use without a power connector? I have a low end 6200 and it actually does a little 3D work so it probably draws a little power. Just a guess.

 

[Clocker]

I think that's right because the SIIG PCIe 1x cards for firewire have an external power connector.

 

[Buck]

Good point Big Wheel.

 

[LunarMist]

I think that's right because the SIIG PCIe 1x cards for firewire have an external power connector.

IIRC the spec for 6-pin powered firewire requires 12V@1.5A to power external devices. That was since the late 90s at least.