[SOLVED] Will a PCI 4.0 GPU work in a PCI 3.0 slot ?

[Foobrother]

Hi all,

Almost 2 years ago I built a new PC with a Gigabyte Z490I AORUS ULTRA Mini ITX LGA1200 motherboard.
At the time, the graphic cards were already quite expensive but I wasn't in a hurry and thought I would be able to get one at a decent price a couple of months later! 😳 Almost 2 years later here I am, looking for a graphics card as prices seem to have dropped a little bit (but not as much as I was expecting!).

Here comes my question. I know my motherboard supports PCI 3.0 but today's graphic cards are all PCI 4.0. Also my setup includes a PCI 3.0 riser cable. So do you know, if I buy a PCI 4.0 graphics card, if it will be able to work with it? I'm pretty sure it's possible as I've seen many people online testing the new RTX 30xx series on PCI 3.0 motherboards at the time. I'm just not familiar with the procedure and don't know if the riser cable will be an issue?!
FYI I'm planning to get Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3070 Ti 8 GB GAMING OC.

Thanks in advance 😉

 

[boju]

Yes it will work just fine. Pcie3 risers had issues on pcie4 slots but just needed to force gen3 in bios rather than rely on auto is all.

 

[Foobrother]

Thanks for the confirmation! I'm relieved
Regarding the PCI 3 riser on PCI 4 slots you mean if you connect a PCI 3 riser on a motherboard with PCI 4 slots right?
In my case the motherboard just has PCI 3.0 slots so it should be ok.

 

[boju]

Regarding the PCI 3 riser on PCI 4 slots you mean if you connect a PCI 3 riser on a motherboard with PCI 4 slots right?

Yes, was just a bit of fyi, I've come across a few threads here with people having issues with gen 3 riser cables on gen 4 boards. You're not in that category so all is fine.

Pcie is backwards compatible so gen 3 runs on gen 2, and 4 will also run on 3.