PCI Express compatibility

[hedfones]

This is probably a dumb question but after finally finding the search feature, I couldn't turn up anything that answered my question.

I am about to purchase a PCIE 2.1 card with a motherboard that has a PCIE 2.0 slot. Are the PCI Express versions backward compatible?

 

[borisof007]

PCI-E 2.1 cards work perfectly fine in 2.0 motherboard slots. The issue comes in with 2.1 cards in 1.0 slots.

 

[hedfones]

Best answer selected by hedfones.

 

[hedfones]

PCI-E 2.1 cards work perfectly fine in 2.0 motherboard slots. The issue comes in with 2.1 cards in 1.0 slots.

Thank you very much.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

PCI-E 2.1 cards work perfectly fine in 2.0 motherboard slots. The issue comes in with 2.1 cards in 1.0 slots.

Wrong, the issue is with certain 2.1 cards in old motherboards (usually pcie 1.x) because the BIOS may not support it. The slots are all backward compatable.