PCI-e x1 sound card/wlan card

[htid]

So i've just built my pc. Got a 7900GTX and a ASUS P5B. When i looked at the mobo spec, i saw 3 PCI slots, great i thought, i need 3, one for USB2, one for soundcard, one for wlan card.

Little did i know that big biyatch ass 7900 takes up the PCI-e x16, covers one of my PCI slots and the fan is about 1mm away from the other PCI. Hence i have just 1 PCI slot really (and even that is pretty close to the fan). The mobo has USB2 so thats ok, but i need both soundcard and wlan.

I may ask well as even though i know the answer. I cant put something in the PCI slot directly below the 7900 fan right? i mean with just 1mm of space the fan will be blowing directly onto the thing in the PCI slot. Will the other PCI slot even be ok, there isn't THAT mcuh space between the fan and the lowest PCI slot.

The mobo has onboard sound but it surely cant be as good as a dedicated sound card right? So if they won't fit can you not buy PCI-e x1 sound cards or wlan cards? I have 3 of those free.

Basically what are my options? Thanks in advance for help

Chris.

[Dark Horse]

I'm not sure there are many pcie expansion cards around these days. Onboard sound is pretty good with most motherboards unless you're a serious audiophile. For the wireless just get a usb dongle and plug it in the back somewhere.

[ExceededGoku]

infact I don't think there are any PCIE sound cards or wireless network cards...

[Dark Horse]

http://www.guru3d.com/newsitem.php?id=3005

As far as PCI Express (PCIe) is concerned, which is the next bus, what we found is that the performance of PCIe is truly bad for audio. We are seeing four times degradation on the bus for audio.

PCIe is designed for graphics and high data transfer, but audio sends very small packets and the overhead can be very big! Moving the data across PCIe is much, much higher than PCI. So what we have to do is go back to the drawing board and work on the transport part of the chip and re-design it to add more silicon to overcome some of the problems we had with PCIe. So for us to come up with a PCIe solution is going to take a while because we have to overcome the problems we're facing with that bus.

[htid]

Oooh thanks dark horse. So i'll use a USB thing for the wireless and then try and put my soundcard in the bottom PCI slot and check the temperature etc. If not, i currently use a soundblaster live 5.1 so i'll just have to see if the onboard audio is comparable to that.

Cheers.