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By this, I mean is it possible to put a PCI-X card in a PCI slot? I heard from someone (who deals with servers all the time) that this is the case, however I may have misheard. Also, the card DOES fit, I'm wondering if they're electrically compatible.

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Yes, as long as the PCI slot is a 2.x or later, PCI 1.0 was 5v while PCI 2.x was 3.3v - which is electrically compatible with PCI-X.

Source: Wikipedia PCI-X

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  • Thank you! This helps a lot. Since PCI 2.0 was released in 1993, this pretty much means any PCI slot.
    – Eli
    Aug 12, 2011 at 20:15
  • Just for future reference, the card in question was a Broadcom BCM5701, and it works in a normal pci slot as well as pci-x
    – Eli
    Aug 13, 2011 at 0:23
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    Maybe this new question adds some interesting detail to the things? superuser.com/questions/839893/…
    – Sopalajo de Arrierez
    Nov 14, 2014 at 2:59
  • This answer is wrong, PCI 2.0 added the 3.3V option but it didn't remove the 5V option. The 5V option wasn't removed until 3.0 and even then there is nothing forcing motherboard manufactureres to use the latest version of the spec.
    – plugwash
    Jun 7, 2017 at 14:31
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That isn't backwards compatibility. Putting a PCI card in a PCI-X port would be considered backwards compatibility - which is the case, as long as it is PCI 2 as the voltage on PCI 1 is not the same. To sum it up, PCI 2 cards can be put in PCI-X ports, not the other way around.

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    There are some PCI-X cards that are keyed in the same fashion as a PCI card and will work in a PCI 2.0 slot. The original question stated that the card does fit in the slot.
    – Dustin G.
    Aug 12, 2011 at 20:25
  • PCI-X can go in to PCI slots by design.
    – Keltari
    Aug 15, 2011 at 5:18
  • I have fixed the question title.
    – kinokijuf
    Feb 29, 2012 at 17:44
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It all comes down to voltage.

PCI-X slots are always 3.3V.

In principle PCI slots can be either 3.3V or 5V depending on which version of the PCI standard they are designed to but in practice 3.3V ones are extremely rare.

Cards can be either 3.3V only, 5V only or universal voltage. Cards and slots are keyed to indicate the voltage.

So if your PCI-x card is keyed for universal voltage then it should work in a regular 5V PCI slot. If it doesn't support 5V then it shouldn't fit in a regular 5V PCI slot. If it fits but doesn't work then someone is failing to follow the specs.

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