Hacksmiths Successfully Ran Modern GPUs in a 33 MHz PCI Slot: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Booted Successfully?

Urian B., Tech Times 27 July 2023, 11:07 pm

A hacksmith was recently successful in coming up with one of the most underrated questions some PC enthusiasts have, whether a modern GPU can be fitted onto a 33 MHz PCI port. The task was successful with not just any GPU, but an actual NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080.

Hacksmiths Attempt to Add a Modern GPU Onto an MHz PCI Slot

According to the story by Hackaday, a question was shared as to whether PC enthusiasts ever looked at a PCI to PCIe x16 adapter and ever wonder what the results would be should they stick a modern PCIe GPU into the slot. The answer to the question is that it apparently works.

Circuit Rewind reportedly attempted to do this experiment as spotted in their video uploaded to YouTube and it shows how as long as users accept that they would need an external power and that they would be limited to a single PCIe lane, it was still possible. Other things users would need to accept include having a low-end GT 1030 card and that the PCI slot won't have enough power.

It was noted that being limited to a single PCIe lane wasn't really much of an issue since just one PCIe lane is enough to offer the needed bandwidth compared to a PCI bus anyway. The report also shared that despite what looked to be an improvised setup, the GT 1030 graphics, its specifications highlighted on NVIDIA, card was still capable of providing good enough 1080p experience for numerous games.

The Experiment was Successful with the Use of the PCIe x$ Slot with a 1x Configuration

The article reports that to make this work, they needed to remove half of the 8 GB system RAM in order for the configuration to run. This was most likely linked to the VRAM mapping issues but the main point was that the configuration did run.

As for the mainboard, since it previously offered PCIe, the same particular card was lodged onto a PCIe x4 slot along with a 1x configuration, which the hacksmiths found to provide higher performance despite being what some people might describe as a questionable move.

The Experiment was Able to Add the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080

The most surprising thing about the experiment, although Hackaday described it as being "perhaps unsurprisingly," was that the hacksmiths were able to boot a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 with ease through the use of an external power as well as a simple 4GB system RAM.

It was noted that despite the simple PCIe x1 link, the whole system was still capable of finishing a 3D benchmark and that the hacksmith was still able to run Doom 2016. However, the main takeaway was that it only used 4GB of RAM with an old Athlon quad-core CPU, which didn't provide the most pleasing experience.

Although not exactly practical, it could still be taken as an interesting experiment, showcasing that it was actually possible to use a modern GPU in a 33 MHz PCI slot.