Can pci-e slots be used as utility/modular slots?

[qwertymatrix]

So a motherboard comes with all kinds of gadgets and bells+ whistles on it as well as all sorts of different ports available on it for sata connections/ fans / ect. Now im wondering if it should happen that some where down the line you use up all the available ports or the board just didn't come with some widget built in that now would be really useful to have, can one or more of the pci-e slots be modded with like an adapter of some sort to make it into some type of utilty port that has a few extra connection for this and that? As far as i know i know pci-e slots are generally for graphics cards and maybe a sound card and im not sure how the slots are wired in the whole scheme of things but considering they can be used to extend or provide support for things previously not there (i.e. graphics or sound) I was thinking they can be used for other things right? If someone could give me some details about this, can take some stress off trying to figure out what board to get; also if there are these "utility mods" that i am thinking about could someone provide some links to various different adapters so i know what i may be looking for in the future.

 

[dodger46]

Details here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express
There are sound cards as well as the usual graphics cards that are compatible, what else were you thinking of hooking up?
There are dozens of adapters from PCI-e to standard PCI if you need flexibility...

 

[wr6133]

http://www.cclonline.com/product/40690/E750/TV-Tuners/VideoMate-E750-Dual-DVB-T-PCIe/VGA1282/
Television

http://www.cclonline.com/product/80535/PEXSAT34/IDE-SATA-SCSI-Cards/StarTech-4-Port-PCI-Express-SATA-III-6Gbps-Controller-Card-with-eSATA-PCIe-x4/CNT1089/
SATA/eSATA

http://www.cclonline.com/product/59376/34948/IDE-SATA-SCSI-Cards/Iomega-eGo-Desktop-Hard-Drive-SuperSpeed-USB-3-0-Desktop-PCIe-Adaptor-Card/BAK0361/
USB 3.0

Just look up an online store and search PCIe theres loads

*edit for cr@p spelling*

 

[Traildriver]

No, there are no utility mods that can turn a single remailing slot into 2 or more additional slots for even more hardware insertion. There are IRQ concerns as well as the designed limits of a MB to supply power to an individual slot.

At some "future" date, by the time there is more hardware out there to attach to a MB, your MB will need replacing anyway.

Just get the best you can comfortably afford. Just plan to get one that can handle what you want to put in the slots. A number of boards out ther now have excellent on-board features.

When I bought my MB, I was specifically looking for 2 PCI-E slots that could both handle 16x for dual video card at 16x fun.

Just plan your MB for what is out there now, not 10-20 years down the road.