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On my motherboard I have a PCIe v1.0 x16 slot. According to Wikipedia, it's able to transfer at ~4 GB/s.

I'm thinking of getting a PCIe SSD (for example, this one), which is limited to ~3.8 GB/s.

However, the SSD is made for PCIe v3.0 x4, which, despite also being limited to ~3.9 GB/s, poses a problem for me. Since it's only using 4 slots (hence the x4), if I plug it directly into my PCIe slot, it'll be limited to ~1 GB/s (or a quarter of the speed). Why? Because I have a PCIe version 1.0, and the SSD is designed for 3.0.

Is there an adapter that will take my PCIe v1.0 x16 slot, at 4 GB/s, and give me a PCIE v3.0 x4 slot, at 3.9 GB/s?

If so, could someone recommend one?

This was originally posted over at SuperUser here. Evidently it's off topic there :(, but as this site is still in beta, you can't migrate questions here IIRC. There was a pretty extended discussion in the comments, so I'll include a screenshot of the post below.

Original Post

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  • You can migrate questions to a beta site - a moderator can migrate questions anywhere
    – ArtOfCode ♦
    Mar 22 '17 at 19:53
  • @Art nice to know - I'll keep that in mind should this ever happen again :)
    – Cullub
    Mar 22 '17 at 19:57
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    Edited question to bring in line with an actual hardware request.
    – NZKshatriya
    Mar 22 '17 at 20:05
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There are no adapters. The reason being that the PCIe version is dictated by the chipset of the motherboard itself. The ONLY way to go from PCIe 1.0 to 3.0 is to buy a board with PCIe 3.0.

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  • Eh I disagree. There are likely adapters, but the question is cost. PCIe is by design backwards compatible with previous generations. And there are PCIe bus expanders available to plug 20 more PCIe cards into a single slot. So get a PCI 3.0 2-slot bus expander with a 16x card edge, plug into the old machine and it will negotiate at 1.0 16x speed. The expander slots will of course be limited in speed but 2+ expander slots into 1 slot are limited in max speed anyway, so likely will work as fast as it can support. .... but the cost of this bridge may be beyond the point that is affordable.
    – Dale Mahalko
    Dec 6 '17 at 20:38

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