Is this going to be a problem?

[Brain-ache]

Finally got the parts to build my new system the other day. The actual build went well and it all works etc, however I hit a snag while building and want your opinions on it.

I used an asus p6t deluxe mb and in the end I went with a sapphire hd4870 gfx card. I also purchased a soundblaster extreme gamer sound card.

Anyway the size of the gfx card is big as expected, when housing it in the pci-e slot it completely covered up the pci slot directly below it leaving only the 2nd pci slot available for the soundcard....however putting the sc in this slot does make it so it partially covers up the fan on the gfx.

I have some pics to show you how close the card is from when I was building it:






As the title suggests, do you think this is a major prob? I'm a slight novice when it comes to complete builds and I know there is a second pci-e lane underneath which could maybe allow me to house the sc above it in the top pci slot, however the instructions with the mb said to put a single gfx card in the top slot for "optimal performance" etc.....and it would require me to move everything around now. If you guys think it's essential though I'll have to do it....but if so would i get decreased perfomance out of the gfx by moving it to the white pci-e slot?

Thx in advance.

[blueball]

Why not move the GFX card into the other PCIe slot (assuming that it runs at full 16x speed) and then move the soundcard up a slot to give more space between them? Sorted

[Brain-ache]

Well the white slot is classed a PCIe 2.0 x16_2 which is technically the same as the blue slot it's housed in now...however the user guide for the mb says:

"In single VGA card mode, use the first PCIe 2.0 x16_1 slot (blue) for a PCIe x 16 graphics card to get better performance."

That's the only reason I hesitated to move it there in the first place.

[blueball]

Why not try it and see how it goes? You can always move it back.

[Brain-ache]

Why not try it and see how it goes? You can always move it back.

Well, tbh I could switch it around, but there are a few reasons why I don't really want to. Firstly everythings wired up now and although it wouldn't take an eon to move slots it's still a pain.

Second, from looking at the width of the card and the the white pcie slot it would more than likely cause the same type of issue except it being close to the psu instead of a soundcard.

Third I have a usb module conected in the lowest slot on the rear of the chassis as the connectors for this are at that end of the mb. I'd have to move this up and tbh I don't think the cable would reach the connector, and I also think the gfx card will cover some of them up anyway.

What I'm getting at is if the soundcard is likely to cause major problems to my gfx card i.e major overheating etc then I'll have to move it, if it's not really going to cause a prob being that close then I'd rather leave it the way it is

[mac124]

Have you tried running a graphics test? Unless the fan is going to be running 100% constantly i don't see it being a huge problem from the pics the fan is entirely covered and there is a bit of a gap between the two cards. It may increase the temp of the gfx card but not enough to cause issues i'd i'd have thought.

Run ati tools spinning cube and keep an eye on the temps, if it doesn't hit much above 80c i wouldn't worry.

The other option is to sell the pci sound card and get a pci express one and run it in the second gfx card slot.

[handscombmp]

To be honest i don't think it will be a major problem as dual slot cards have cooling at the pci bracket area as well.

[chuckskull]

I can't see it being a problem. Most likely the GPU will be a couple of degree's hotter, but that's not likely to be a problem. Easy way to find out is to just monitor the temps of the graphics card. Pretty sure you can do this from the ATI control panel. If not there are literally hundreds of other programs that can do it.

If everything's stable and the temps aren't to high then don't worry about it.

[this_is_gav]

My old Zalman VF900 hated having another card next to it (even though it was just a half-height TV card, it resulted in a rise of about 20c under load and crashes soon after (HD3870)), though every other cooler I've had before and since has been fine (temps rose a touch, but nothing to be concerned about). So long as it stays beneath 90c under load, which the HD48xxs are quite happy to work at, then it's still doing a better job than the stock cooler.

Rivatuner can monitor the temps of the card while you're in game, so give that a shot. I don't think it works as standard on Vista x64 though, so keep that in mind if you've gone for that.

[Brain-ache]

Thanks for the responses.

I only installed vista on it yesterday so I'll get it in fully working order and run some tests to see what the temps are like.

I could maybe even run a second test with the sound card removed and see what the differences are like as that wouldn't take a second to sort.

I'll get back to you.

[Ciber]

I have to say I'm not a fan of the p6t deluxe's expansion slot layout for that reason. If I were you I would think about getting a PCI-express sound card, which can go in the lowest pci-ex16 slot or the x1 one above the graphics card. One of these maybe: http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/s...html?CRE-XFIEE or this http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/s...html?CRE-70SB0

[Brain-ache]

I'm actually having some major probs getting the soundcard to work atm. It's probably not related to this thread but I can't get any sound out of it apart from some very feint strange static garbled noise over headphones.

I'm running vista 64 and I have the latest drivers for it but to no avail. The system says the card is connected with no conflicts and working, and nothing is muted etc. Niether the front ports of rear ports give me anything....banging my head against a brick wall here.

I might try and reseat it in the slot, however I can't see this being the problem as everything tells me it's working - maybe faulty, I dunno.

[Ciber]

See if you can return it and swap it for a pci express one then

[handscombmp]

See if you can return it and swap it for a pci express one then

X-Fi titanium is meant to be a good card i think.

[mac124]

Is the sound card set to output the sound, having an hd4870 this maybe set to output sound?

I assume you have also disabled the onboard sound in the bios? If not this could also be enabled.

[Brain-ache]

Yer I've managed to get it working now after spending all day swapping about drivers and messing with settings, I decided to see if it was vista 64 compatibility causing the issues and chucked it into my old win xp system..... and guess what?...it worked first time.

So then I put it back into my new system and reset everything back to default and it just worked! I'm pretty sure it just wasn't sat in the pci slot fully...even though vista told me it was working before that

Anyway it's working now that's the main thing.

As for the weird noise it turns out to be some kind of electro-static noise coming through the front panel when hooked up to either the sound card or the mobo hd connection. I think it's just a poor connection through the cable on my cosmos 1000 tbh as it did it on both devices only through the front panel headphone socket. I read it can be something to do with usb too, which could explain why it seemed to do it when I moved my mouse.

Was simple to fix anyway...just unplug it and don't use it. Would've been nice to have front panel audio, but it's not the end of the world.

As for gfx temps, just with minimal load (vista aero, webpages open etc) it runs from 40dg to 55dg after being on for a while. Seems like it's ok, but not tested in gaming yet.