GPU Blocking The Other PCIe Slots? Here’s 7 Workarounds

Some motherboards are badly laid out, or just too small for massive, modern GPUs. This means that your graphics card might be blocking access to one or more other PCIe slots, making it impossible to plug in another PCIe expansion card like a USB card, WiFi PCIe card or a PCIe networking device.

I actually had this exact problem recently because my AMD RX6700XT GPU was blocking my other PCIe x16 slot, meaning that I couldn’t fit my 10 Gigabit Intel card into my build. I tried a few different methods and thankfully there are a few potential fixes and workarounds here, which I dive into in this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPbwJuUBkIo

If you prefer text over video, please read on for the guide/transcript version of this video.

Video Transcript And Guide

Hey everyone, some motherboards are badly designed or just try and pack too much into them (something that many micro ATX motherboards are guilty of) – and this can result in many graphics cards completely blocking some or all of the other PCIe slots. Which is annoying. It’s annoying because if you want to plug in a PCIe WiFi or networking card, you probably won’t be able to. I actually recently tried forcing my RX6700 XT graphics card and my 10 Gigabit Intel card into my motherboard, and it SORT OF looked like it was ‘gonna work… until I realized that both my cards were at a weird angle and this stress could easily kill the PCIe slots or the cards themself. So if you have a gargantuan goliath girthy graphics card, here’s 7 things you can try so that you can access the other PCIe slots.

Loosen The GPU Case Screw

Firstly in SOME cases, you can actually try loosening up the screws that fix your graphics card to the case – and this will allow you to angle the GPU backwards a bit. You MIGHT then be able to access the other PCIe slot to plug your other card in. However it’s really important that you don’t try and force everything in (like I tried) – if your GPU or the other card ends up at a weird angle, just give up. It probably won’t work. This all actually comes down to the width of your GPU – something which people discuss as the slot width.

This screw method MIGHT actually work well for a “2.0 slot” GPU, which usually comes to around 35 or 36mm (basically, just under an inch and a half). While “2.0” means that they DO mainly cover 2 whole PCIe slots, these GPUs are often thin enough that this screw method might work. However my Sapphire RX6700 XT card is a 2.2 slot GPU and it’s around 42 or 43mm wide, making it a bit too big for this “screw method”. You do have to be conscious of cooling, though: if you squeeze a big second card right next to your GPU, it will likely reduce your GPU’s cooling performance quite a lot – and it’ll also expel a lot of extra heat directly into your other PCIe card, which is naturally not ideal.

GPU Riser Cable

In this case, the second thing you can try is to explore riser cables. You can plug one of these into your graphics card, and then move it somewhere else in your case. This is what all those Tech Tokers use who vertically mount their GPUs – they’re basically relocating the GPU away from the traditional “top slot” that most people put their GPUs in to. Riser cables are also what crypto miners use, so they ARE fairly commonly used – but there’s three things you need to know about them:

1. Firstly unless you buy a full kit, a “simple” riser cable like this one won’t actually give you anywhere in the case to mount your GPU to. It’ll just be dangling around your case, which could lead to damage. You’ll either need to buy or make a custom mount for it, or try “mounting” your GPU to your case with cable ties and GPU support braces… which is a bit janky. This IS actually what I ended up doing in my workstation PC so that I could finally get my 10 Gigabit card installed in it, but it’s not a great fix.
2. The second thing to know is that riser cables aren’t always cheap – sometimes you can buy a £100 (or dollars) or more.
3. Finally, while PCIe is meant to be forwards and backwards compatible, in practice you should buy the same version of riser cable as your motherboard supports. For example if you have a PCIe version 4 slot, then you should buy a gen 4 riser cable. Otherwise you could have a range of issues including your PC not booting up, or your GPU crashing.

Slimline Riser Cable

If this method doesn’t sound right for you, the third thing you can try is to… buy a riser cable. No I haven’t gone mad, and my teleprompter hasn’t crashed either. Basically in SOME cases you can actually get a slimline riser cable and put this into the covered up slot BEFORE you install your graphics card. This then means that you can plug your other PCIe device in freely, because you have a big long extension cable that you can position in another part of your case.

Naturally if this card is meant to be screwed into your case (for example it exposes ports on the back, like USB connectors or Ethernet jacks), then you have a similar problem that I covered in the second method. But if it’s a PCIe to M.2 NVMe adaptor, for example, this method could work quite well. You just need to make sure that your graphics card has sufficient clearance under it, and also that the riser cable you buy is as slimline as possible – there’s no point of buying a riser cable that needs 25mm (1″) of space, after all, because this would clash with the graphics card. 

Switch To ATX

The fourth possible “workaround” isn’t exactly a fun (or cheap) one, and it’s to unfortunately look at changing your motherboard – for example moving from a micro ATX to full size ATX motherboard. This might ALSO mean upgrading your case if you have a micro ATX case, so this whole option might not be feasible for some people. But if you WERE planning on upgrading sometime soon, this would work quite well because everything is usually a lot more spaced out on ATX motherboards – plus there are more PCIe slots.

Unless you have a triple slot RTX 4090 and a badly laid out motherboard, you SHOULD be able to fit 1 or 2 other PCIe cards into a full size ATX motherboard. I’m actually seriously considering changing my workstation PC from a micro ATX motherboard and case for this exact reason – having to rely on hacky riser cables with weird mounting solutions is not really fun. Plus your GPU is likely to be one of your most expensive components in your build, and so do you really want it hanging around your case? Right now I don’t really have the time or energy to change my entire PC to be ATX, but I’m planning on doing this later this year or next year. I can’t say that I love the janky solution I came up with, to be honest.

Change Your GPU

The fifth possible “fix” also isn’t ideal, and it’s to change your graphics card. I ALSO strongly considered this before going down the riser cable route, because I worked out that a “2.0 slot” GPU would probably be thin enough to allow me to squeeze my networking card in. But really, single slot GPUs are better because you don’t have to worry about installing your card at a tight angle and placing undue stress on the PCIe slot. Galax have a single slot RTX 4060ti card which is actually pretty awesome because many single slot GPUs are budget (and low powered cards), but naturally the 4060Ti is a fairly powerful GPU.

The main downside is that it runs pretty loud, because the graphics card’s heatsink and fans are ultra compact. The alternative is to buy one of NVIDIA’s workstation GPUs like the RTX A2000 or the RTDX 4000 Ada, since they are both single slot GPUs. These are NOT gaming cards though: they are more designed for professional workloads, and so their gaming performance won’t exactly be great, despite spending a small fortune on the card. But if you mainly did professional work, this could be a good option for you.

Give Up

The sixth option is to just give up. Give up. It’s too hard. Kidding, sort of. If the other PCIe card you wanted to install was something “common” like a WiFi card, there ARE other options open to you. Some motherboards have an M.2 slot that is specifically designed for WiFi cards, meaning that you can buy a simple M.2 WiFi card, and fit it into that M.2 slot and get WiFi that way – instead of trying to battle with your oversized graphics card. Alternatively you could buy a USB WiFi adapter.

While these aren’t always as reliable as the other types of WiFI adapters, they can sometimes work well – and it’ll naturally be a LOT easier to just plug in a USB, than mess around with covered PCIe slots. Obviously this “method” depends entirely on what other device you are plugging in. In my case, I had a 10 Gigabit networking card and I didn’t really have any other option here. I mean, you CAN technically buy M.2 to RJ45 adaptors but these are often quite niche – and expensive – and so it worked out easier and cheaper for me just to go with the riser cable instead. But if you are struggling to fit in your other PCIe card, it could be worth looking at alternative products.

Move Your GPU To Another Slot

The final thing you could try is to put your graphics card into a different slot – other than the top one. This would free up some extra room so that your other PCIe card can go into the top slot, which could work well – in theory. However there can be a big downside here – often the top PCIe slot runs at the full x16 bandwidth (basically using your CPU’s PCIe lanes).

Many of the other PCIe slots run at lower bandwidth, even if they are full x16 slots – they might be cut down to x8 or even x4 speeds. This means that freeing up room for your other PCIe card by moving your GPU out of the top slot might reduce your gaming (or rendering) performance. I discuss this point more in another video which is definitely worth checking out because SOMETIMES your FPS rates won’t be massively affected by putting your GPU in a different slot… but other times it will. It gets a bit confusing so you can check that other video out here.