The Convenience of PCI Express x1 Graphics Cards

Twitter: RGinHD
Insta: rginhd

When we think about graphics cards we think of AGP, or PCI Express x16 which is the modern standard. But, if you have an older desktop lacking in expansion slots or need something low profile that uses a tiny amount of power, why not opt for a PCIe x1 GPU instead?

Games Tested:
CS:GO
GTA V
Rocket League

Thanks for watching :)

[RandomGaminginHD]

sorry this is a little short. I was debating whether or not to upload, but videos will be back to longer length right away :)

[sciencetestsubject]

fun fact, you can use a card with a x16 finger inside a x1 slot if you remove the endcap of the slot, also some motherboards have all x16 size slots, whilst they are x1 electrically.

[JamesSmith-swnk]

The problem is bandwidth, the best card that pci-e x1 can "push" is probably a gt 730. Pci-e x1 slot is about the same as a Pci slot in maximum bandwidth.

[PrivateGaming]

One of, if not the best tech channel on YouTube :)

[BudgetBuildsOfficial]

PCI-E 1X docent prove to be a bottleneck which makes it ideal for use on Older Cards where you can cut off the end part to fit them in. Idea; if you really need to use the slot

[ganeshsahane]

Hey just wanted to say your channel is really awesome unlike others who just focus on high end stuff. Keep up the good work :D

[RegisPessolano]

GPUs like this is interesting to use for KVM virtualization. In this type of Linux virtualization you can do a "pass through" of one hardware component and use a close native performance on virtual machine. Nice video, man!

[conallfowler]

Love the range of products and product prices as most tech YouTubers either focus on pieces of plastic chinese garbage or $1500 graphics cards/processors. Keep it up!

[malvage]

I don't know in the UK, but here in Italy there's also a GT 730 1 GB GDDR5 for the PCIe 1x slot

Edit: Sorry, just checked it isn't GDDR5, it's GDDR3

[kanopus]

I bought a Geforce GT730 with 2GB DDR3 last year, because I needed a low profile GPU to put on my secondary computer. It uses pci-e x8 slot, but I think you could use it in a pci-e x1 slot if it doesn't have a closed end. You could also put this GPU in a pci-e x16 slot if you needed to do that. Main difference between the GT710 and this GT730 is that it has twice the amount of cuda cores (384 in total).

[LeminskiTankscor]

A fantastic feature of PCI-E is that it can operate fine in smaller slots if they have a cut or you make one. So while a mid end card will suffer some bottleneck if it's forced to run in a slower mode, they'll probably do just fine in x1, x4 etc mode if you can make the space.

[kwerboom]

Considering how well Intel and AMD do with modern integrated graphics on the very low end (sub 50 American dollars) especially within the last 4 years, I just don't think we'll ever see a PCIe X1refresh again.

[prerunnerwannabe]

I've been wondering about x1 graphics cards. Thanks for uploading a video about them!
A thought for a future video: could you buy an x1 to x16 adaptor and see what kind of performance loss there is on something like an RX 460 or GTX 1050?

[Fascka]

I love how you can see Random slowly getting better at CS:Go

[WednesdayMan]

this gpu is amazing for what it is. I didn't expect it to even run CS:GO to run at playable Framerates. and considering the low wattage, this could be placed into my own build for a budget gaming laptop

[DennisRamberg]

The cool, but risky thing is to dremel a cut at the end of the connector without hurting the pins inside the connector, then you could potentially use any PCI-e graphics card although they would be limited by the bandwidth of the PCI-e 1x. :) It should theoretically work.

[DragoFTWTM]

your content gets better everyday man. I'm really in to PC's and you help me alot with me on a tight budget.

[CMDRSweeper]

The good news is that the PCI-E interface is very simple.
What that means is that if you can get an open x1 slot, you can fit a x16 card in it.
Now not a lot of them ship wiht the slots open in the rear, but you are free to grind it open yourself.
This means that any x16 card you run in a x1, will run at PCI-E x1 speeds.

[matthewday]

I've never seen a pci-e system that didn't have an x16. Might be useful for extra monitors on systems that don't have two x16, or maybe as a physx

[randallsmith]

I didn't know there were any x1 GT 710's out there. I have a x8 card that I used to upgrade the Core 2 Duo system my Kindergartner uses. Yes, that's right, I spent $30 on a graphics card so my daughter could run one game from the Windows App store that she is in love with. The game was not compatible with the Intel Express graphics.