Does it matter which PCI-E slot I use?

[14k]

I have an ASRock P67 Extreme4 Gen3 motherboard. It has 2 PCI-E 3.0 x16 slots. I only have one graphics card at the moment (R6950). Does it matter which slot I install this card to? The motherboard recommends the top one, but access to the SATA ports is limited on this one. Can I move it to the next one down without any problems? Also, just out of interest could I install this card on a PCI-E 2.0 slot? If yes, would I get reduced performance?
Cheers

 

[wintermint]

Yes, technically there are no cards released for pcie 3.0 yet. Furthermore.. i don't think anything really max out the bandwidth on 2.0/2.1 either. You will be fine using pcie 2.0 and all the cards are pretty much backward compatible on the pcie slot. I would at least make sure you're using on the x16.

 

[14k]

Thanks. Interestingly I have a PCI-E 2.0 slot which is also x16

Surprised my high end card doesn't utilise the 3.0 bandwith. I should've got a cheaper motherboard!

 

[phamhlam]

Nothing can use PCI Express 3.0 since the CPU doesn't even have support for it. Wait till Ivy Bridge.

 

[rfranken]

From what i see that PCI 2.0 slot only runs at x4 speed.
so i'd think you need to use the PCI 3.0 slots as they run at (single at x16, dual at x8)