PCI-X to x4 PCI Express Adapter Card

[ArmorAlley]

For example, https://www.startech.com/en-eu/card...73YXOlr4BUPGUkFmTZ1UxKQIjqfo_3Fbe71wJtW0CNx-C

I'm new to the G5 and PCI-X.
I suspect that these adapters are no really available and probably a healthy price when they occasionally appear on eBay.
Or are they actually available anywhere?

Does anyone have any practical experience with them?

I went looking for one on the off-chance that I could stick my Sonnet Tempo SSD into my G5 2.0GHz DP.
The problem with almost all PCIe cards is that of drivers not being compatible with 10.6b and below.
There may be some graphics cards that would work with it.

PCIe to PCI cards are available and these are easy to find on eBay, but I don't really see the point of them, unless you have the 1,6GHz G5.

 

[herd]

The startech version is the only one I've seen (www.startech.com/en-us/cards-adapters/pcix1pex4), but I've never seen one for sale. This was the last place I tried: www.tamayatech.com/parts.php?g=PCIX1PEX4

 

[Melkhior]

I suspect that these adapters are no really available and probably a healthy price when they occasionally appear on eBay.

Lack of demand I presume, silicon is still in production but is expensive (e.g. PI7C9X130DNDE, which can do both way).

 

[joevt]

I've connected PCIe Nvidia 7800GT Mac Edition from my Quad G5 in a B&W G3 using a StarTech PCI to PCIe adapter. There's some notes about that and PCI/PCI-X to PCIe bridges at:
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...l-work-in-a-beige-power-macintosh-g3.2303689/

A PCI-X to PCIe x4 adapter would maybe perform twice as fast in a 64-bit slot of the B&W G3. The G3 has a 32-bit slot that runs at 66 MHz but I don't recall if I tried that. The 32-bit slot would have a similar performance to the 64-bit 33 MHz slots if the 32-bit slot was able to do 66 MHz.

 

[gsteemso]

I'm having to remind myself that I don't actually have a use case for such an adapter, lest I waste much time and effort trying to acquire one. SUCH A NIFTY IDEA!

 

[Unknown_K]

I figured the only people that cared about those adapters were people looking to make a gaming PC from an old server motherboard that was PCI-X only. So, there was a brief period of time somebody would have wanted one. Kind of like PATA to SCSI adapters.

 

[joevt]

One would be nice for testing Thunderbolt, or USB 3.x, or NVMe or 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet in an old PowerPC Mac. Sure, I can use the StarTech PCI to PCIe adapter but that only gives up to 133 MB/s (I don't know if it can support 266 MB/s in a Yosemite or Yikes 66 MHz slot - and that slot is usually for the GPU).

 

[Unknown_K]

NVME would be interesting if you could make it bootable, or if you still run video editing on the old beast.

 

[joevt]

NVME would be interesting if you could make it bootable, or if you still run video editing on the old beast.

It could be bootable if there's a PCI option ROM to hold a driver. Some NVMe's do have a PCI Option ROM. Most do not.
New World Macs can have their firmware modified by a firmware updater.
Old World Macs can have a ROM SIMM replacement.
An nvramrc script can load a driver from a disk that is supported before probe-all happens in Open Firmware (probably not a PCI card).