Can PCIe x8 (Or x4/x1) Fit Into x16 Slots? (And Vice Versa?)

PCI express is great because it allows us to make our computers more powerful than what our motherboard and CPU provides. For example if we want to play lots of PC games, we can buy an graphics card and install it in our motherboard's x16 PCIe slot - giving us much better graphics than we get with our CPU.

Or if you wanted to add WiFi capability to your motherboard, you could buy a simple WiFi PCIe card and insert this into the x1 slot on your motherboard - giving instant internet access. Nice!

But what happens if you have an x8 PCIe card (for example) but your motherboard only has x1 or x16 slots available? Can you fit the x8 card into either of these slots? And even if you CAN do this... should you do it?

I explore all these topics and more in this video.

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The individual timestamps for this video are:
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00:00 PCIe Confusion
00:44 Physically Installing PCIe Devices
01:50 Closed End PCIe Ports
02:34 Should You Fit 'Wrong Sized' PCIe Devices?
03:18 A Note Of Caution

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Credits
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Thanks to the following resources (sounds, images etc):

"Pop-up Sound" by BeezleFM (https://freesound.org/s/512135/ -- License: Attribution 4.0)

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#PCBuild #PCIeLanes #GraphicsCard