Re: PCIe -> PCI bridge shopping advice

Hello,

On Mon, 18 May 2026 13:08:05 +1000
Ruben Schade <[email protected]> wrote:

> I'm looking to get a PCIe to PCI bridge adapter, to let me connect PCI 
> devices to my amd64 PCIe system (classic sound cards, mostly). I've 
> looked up ppb(4), which references this under the BRIDGES section, but 
> it doesn't get more specific:
> 
>  > Generic PCI bridges, including expansion backplanes.  
> 
> Anyone have any real world tips/advice on which such bridge device I 
> should buy, what to avoid? Or am I overthinking it?
> 
> Most of the bridges I'm seeing are based around a ASMedia ASM1083 
> controller.

I went the other way around to add an NVMe device to a PCI-X G5:

[     1.000000] pci2 at ibmcpc0 bus 7
[     1.000000] pci2: i/o space, memory space enabled
[     1.000000] ppb0 at pci2 dev 4 function 0: PLX Technology PEX 8111 PCIe-to-PCI Bridge (rev. 0x21)
[     1.000000] ppb0: PCI Express capability version 1 <PCI/PCI-X to PCI-E Bridge> x1 @ 2.5GT/s
[     1.000000] pci3 at ppb0 bus 8
[     1.000000] pci3: i/o space, memory space enabled
[     1.000000] nvme0 at pci3 dev 0 function 0: vendor 1c5c product 174a (rev. 0x00)
[     1.000000] nvme0: NVMe 1.3
[     1.000000] nvme0: interrupting at irq 54
[     1.000000] nvme0: SKHynix_HFM256GD3HX015N, firmware 41030C20, serial FSB2N701512702O37
[     1.000000] ld0 at nvme0 nsid 1
[     1.000000] ld0: 238 GB, 31130 cyl, 255 head, 63 sec, 512 bytes/sect x 500118192 sectors

No special drivers needed, it's seen as a simple pci-pci bridge.

This one is kinda annoying - sitting in a 64bit/133MHz slot but only
supports 32bit/66MHz, while claiming to be a PCI-X device ( the only
PCI-X feature it supports is MSI ). For your purposes 32bit/33MHz
should be more than enough though.

You may want to check if the bridge you're going to buy supports 5v
devices - older PCI cards may not work in 3.3v only slots.

have fun
Michael