Can PCI Express 3.0 work in a PCI Express 2 slot

[Ricford]

Numerous articles say yes but they're dated in 2012. As it is now 2014, are the newest upper end video cards still compatible?

 

[CrispyChips]

Yep ,100% fine. No true single graphics card can fully saturate a PCI-E 2.0 lane yet.

 

[HEXiT]

yes.. pci-e 2 and 3 are compatible. pci-e 3 has a slightly more efficient architecture but is compatible whether it be old cards with new motherboards or new cards with old motherboards.

 

[KieranDavidW123]

Backwards compatible my Friend 16X PCI 3 will be half the bandwidth for PCI 2; 8X. And so forth

 

[Eggz]

Yes, any PCI-e card will work in any PCI-e slot. The only difference with be the max speed, which doesn't make a difference anyway. Graphics cards use 16x slots, and no graphics card can use the fastest 16x slot (PCI-e v3). They can barely use the slowest one (PCI-e v1). You're all good!