Confused about PCI-E

[Arman]

Hello, guys, excuse my noobiness... But i'm confused about these PCI-E lanes and diagrams...
I've been looking at the supermicro's X11SSH-F and i've been having a problem understanding certain things.

on the motherboard's specs about expansion slots it shows:

I understand that there is one x16 slot and 2 x8 slots.(As it shows on the following diagram)

But what i don't understand is why it says x4 on the x8 slot and why it says x8 for the x16 slot... what does the "(in x16)" mean? what does it mean by "in"?

 

[Bidule0hm]

I guess it means a x8 slot but with a x16 connector on the board (same thing with the x4 (x8) slot) ;)

 

[Arman]

I guess it means a x8 slot but with a x16 connector on the board (same thing with the x4 (x8) slot) ;)

Can you differentiate between connector and slot, please? ^_^

 

[Ericloewe]

The slot being sized for x16 does not mean that it is wired for x16.

It is common practice to make sockets larger than their electrical connection, to allow for larger cards (with the obvious bandwidth penalty). The alternative would be for the socket to be the same size as the electrical connections, but open at the end. This configuration is rare.

On that board, you have a x16 physical slot wired for x8 lanes, one x8 slot wired for all x8 lanes and one x8 slot wired for x4 lanes.

 

[Arman]

The slot being sized for x16 does not mean that it is wired for x16.

It is common practice to make sockets larger than their electrical connection, to allow for larger cards (with the obvious bandwidth penalty). The alternative would be for the socket to be the same size as the electrical connections, but open at the end. This configuration is rare.

On that board, you have a x16 physical slot wired for x8 lanes, one x8 slot wired for all x8 lanes and one x8 slot wired for x4 lanes.

Oh, I understand now ^_^ Thanks