GT430 in PCIe x4 (electrical) slot

[Caudovittatus]

Hi all,

I'm speccing up a server (small business). The motherboard I intend to use (SuperMicro X9SCM-F) only has PCIe 8x and 4x slots and the integrated graphics chip is a Matrox G200 with 16Mb (it's actually a SandyBridge/CougarPoint board). I think they use the old Matrox chips to allow ILMI network connections and I suppose most servers don't spend much time hooked up and being used directly with a high-res display. While this server is going to primarily be doing normal server-type things, but I would like to have:

a) A graphics card that can connect to a normal high res display (actually working at 2048x1152@32bpp) which the integrated chip won't do as it doesn't have enough memory.
b) An nVidia GPU that I can experiment with CUDA on (nothing heavy duty, just an initial foray to discover it's capabilities and determine whether it should be used for future projects).

For b) I could obtain a relatively low power nVidia card and put it in my desktop workstation (currently using Radeon 2 Radeon 4870s, but they are being upgraded to a 2Gb 6950), but I'm not sure how well they will get along, and if I can put it in the server I'll kill two birds with one stone.

I don't want to hack around with the slots, so what I'm thinking of is using a converter to plug into one of the PCIe x4 slots which gives a mechanical 16x slot. The real question is, given that the GT430 doesn't have a PCIe power connector for power from the CPU, will the 4x electical slot be able to power the GT430 effectively?

The parts I'm looking at are:

Motherboard: http://www.supermicro.com/products/m...04/X9SCM-F.cfm
Converter: http://linitx.com/product/11772

Then for graphics one of:
http://www.zotacusa.com/zotac-zone-g...40601-20l.html
http://ca.asus.com/Graphics_Cards/NV...0_DC_SLDI1GD3/

Another alternative is the GT520:
http://www.asus.com/Graphics_Cards/N...ILENTDI1GD3LP/

The server will also have an x8 slot free (and there are x8 to x16 converters), but the trouble is that I'm not sure that I'd be able to get the extender to reach over the end of the motherboard (there is 7cm of cable available).

I suspect that none of the cards would have too much problem with an x4 slot from the bandwidth perspective, but I'm not sure that they will be able to support the power draw from these GPUs.

What do you think?

[watercooled]

Technically it should work fine and the lack of bandwidth shouldn't make any noticeable difference on an entry-level card. You raise a good point about power though - TBH I'm not sure. The PCIe spec should allow for 75w to be drawn through the motherboard so provided this board meets that spec it should be fine. The 430 draws about 50w max and the 520 about 30w so the 520 would be the safer option.

[scaryjim]

It's hard to tell for sure, but zooming in on the product image it looks like at least some of the pci-e ports on that mobo are open-backed. If I'm right about that, you won't need an adapter; you can just slot the card in & the excess card connector sticks out the back. Best way to check is an email to supermicro for confirmation.

As to power, AFAIK any pci-e slot should provide up to 75w, as it's part of the specification.

[Caudovittatus]

Thanks for the info, I'll let you know how it goes