VGA card ok in second (x8) PCI-E slot?

[jimbouk]

Hi there

Just a quick question before I do something stupid....

I've got a SLI motherboard and was wondering if a graphics card would be happy in the secondary slot. The chipset cooler is a noisey fan and I've got a Zalman cooler for it but it will block the end of the main PCI-E x16 slot. I know I'll only be getting 8 lanes but it's only going to be a midrange card so that's not a worry, it's more just a 'will it work' sort of question.

For reference the mobo is a Foxconn N570SM2AA-8EKRS2H NF570 SLI

Cheers!

[alsenior]

you could snap the offending pins of the zalman cooler. it would not have much effect. but you can unless there is a bios limitation put a card i the 8x slot there would be no noticeable performance drop

[jimbouk]

Thanks, I might give it the chop at some point - especially if I need another pci slot soon. Have to wait till graphics card comes back, broken atm

On a side not has anyone hacked the end off a PCI-E x1 slot and stuck a graphics card in there? Would be useful for multi-monitor goodness...

[scrandman]

On a side not has anyone hacked the end off a PCI-E x1 slot and stuck a graphics card in there? Would be useful for multi-monitor goodness...

Would this even work? If it did, I assume 1xPCI-E would make it limited to 2D apps only - just shy of a good old AGP x 2 slot.

[jimbouk]

Was thinking more extended desktop rather than gaming yeah. Stick in one of the budget cards to run a 3rd display, so long as it wasn't turbocache/hypermemory it'd be fine for 2d/video/etc.

Although for gaming Toms Hardware had some interesting numbers, wouldn't be too bad.

[scrandman]

Was thinking more extended desktop rather than gaming yeah. Stick in one of the budget cards to run a 3rd display, so long as it wasn't turbocache/hypermemory it'd be fine for 2d/video/etc.

Although for gaming Toms Hardware had some interesting numbers, wouldn't be too bad.

Eh?

The Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS performs horribly at x1 and x4 speeds, quite far away from its maximum performance, which is clearly reached at x16 speeds. The ATI Radeon X1900 XTX, however, doesn't require more than x4 PCI Express bandwidth to perform properly in Call of Duty 2.

To be honest, I was a great believer that AGP was dropped too early - we barely used 4xAGP even when 8xAGP was on the market, then wow - PCI-e x 16 ~ 16x100MHz available bandwidth as opposed to 8x66MHz, then double wow - SLI 32xPCI-e.

How much bandwidth is currently used even by the top whack stuff I wonder?!

Anyway, gone a bit OT I guess. Looks like a cheapo PCIe card in a PCIe x1 slot will be ideal for having another screen for 2D stuff...

[jimbouk]

Yeah with the 8800 gts it dies at x1, but it's not too bad with the x1900 xtx it isn't too bad, 1280x1024 on a mid-range card should be ok.

PCI-E is a lot better in that it isn't just used for graphics cards, and being able to have the 4 different sizes adds flexibility (and saves money on the x1 cards).

x16 is overkill, on SLI it really doesn't matter if your mobo only supports 2 x8. Maybe part of it was power requirements, AGP could push much current through it.

[BUFF]

How much bandwidth is currently used even by the top whack stuff I wonder?!

tests have shown that real top-end stuff (SLIed 8800GTXs/CF X2900s running very high res etc.) does get better results on dual x16 than dual x8.
Totally irrelevant for 95%+ of users though.