Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
PCI-express question...
I'm slowly looking at building a newer comp, one with PCI-e so that I can go SLI with a couple 8800GT cards. My question involves the slots for the cards. If a board has 1 PCI-e x16 slot and one PCI-e x1 slot, is this fine for SLI or should I get a board with 2 PCI-e x16 slots?
Comments
that is SO not fine for SLI, the pci-e x1 slot is for accessories, such as network adapters, and sound cards. you need a mb with 2 16x pci-e slots.
Edit: but i will warn you, most game do not really make much use of SLI yet. i would just buy the board with 2 slots, and get one of the new GeForce 280 models, and you can buy a second one down the road and upgrade it.
No, a PCIeX1 is a small slot about an inch long. PCI, PCIE, PCIEx1, PCIEx4, and PCIEx16 are all completely different slot types. If you want to run an SLI GPU setup, you need to have multiple PCIEx16 slots, as well as enough spacing in them to fit your GPU's both on the Mother board itself, as well as in whatever case you have. Keep in mind that running any of the better GPU/Video cards will physically occupy the PCIEx16 slot, as well as any slot that is immediately adjacent, which will render the other slot non usable. Another thing to keep in mind when running SLI, most mother boards do not actually run both SLI cards at the rate of X16. Most in fact downgrade the speed to X8 thereby decreasing your potential speed. When deciding on a motherboard you should lok at its specs and make sure that it has the technology to support running both cards at X16. That is something MOST people over look. In my not so humble opinion, SLI is over rated and you are almost as well off to just get a good motherboard and a good single card. Depending on your budget, the X2 cards are a fair bet, as they are a dual core video card in a single unit (And they tend to smoke most cards. They cost 500-600 a card tho) But the new 9800GTX+ card will be a good choice at 230ish (or 200 for the standard 9800gtx) and is a solid card that will run most anything currently on the market at fairly high settings as a single card. Done rambling. Bed time. Be back in a few hours. Hope that helps.
Alright, thanks. I'm not familiar with them, so I wasn't sure if they worked the same as AGP with the whole 1x, 4x,8x setup or if the numbers represented something else. Thanks for the clarification.
Helped a lot, thank you. I'll make sure to check the spacings on the board as well as the running speeds. And I'll look into the 9800. I was looking at the 9500 until I learned it blew chunks.
Don't be shy about looking into some possibilities, and posting what you are considering here. I am sure there are one or two tech heads who will critique what you post and point you in the right direction. Giood luck! Night.