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No room?

I

InfernalMachine

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 8, 2004
Messages
418
I'm running pretty tight as is (see sig), it was a stretch getting my Audio card wedged between the Xfire cards and the slot at the bottom my case is taken up by my firewire card (which I use). With another card to add (I will get one) I will have to lose FW. Anyone eslse facing this?
 
I really only have the use of one free PCI slot. It's a toss up between a sound card, tv tuner or a PPU (already have the sound card and TV tuner)
 
I have a Asus A8N-32 Sli Deluxe and i have 2 7800 gtx 512's and a Xfi card sandwiched between both and absolutely no room for anything else:(
 
I'd guess that the soundcard is probably the most expendable. Onboard might not be as good, but atleast you'll still have your PC running 100%, new onboards support 5.1 too.
 
Sly said:
I'd guess that the soundcard is probably the most expendable. Onboard might not be as good, but atleast you'll still have your PC running 100%, new onboards support 5.1 too.
Click to expand...
5.1, yes, 100% efeicentcy, no, it will use up a bit of your processor, and a big reason ppl get a sound card is for EAX, so, idk, it'll be close..............
 
I would say go with an audigy that has the built on firewire port. That way he can have EAX and such and still have a firewire port to work with. Then he is free to remove the firewire card.

I only buy motherboard with firewire built on, but I was dissapointed when I found that the X-FI lost its firewire port.
 
I think every owner with a crossfire/sli rig and a sound card will face space problems unless if we see a PCIe solution coming soon.
 
Ockie said:
I think every owner with a crossfire/sli rig and a sound card will face space problems unless if we see a PCIe solution coming soon.
Click to expand...

There is a space problem just due to the number of spaces video cards take up. Having more PCIe devices won't help this problem. Most modern video cards take up 2 slots meaning that anyone with a SLI or crossfire system will be using 4 of their slots just for video cards. Most motherboards only have 5 or 6 expansion slots on the board. Subtract the 4 slots for the video card and you are only left with 1 or 2 slots. No matter what they are, this isn't enough for many people. Now with PPUs coming into the picture it is even worse.

I got my motherboard (ASUS A8N-SLI Premium) because it is one of the few boards that uses all 7 expansion slots. Even with a SLI setup I still have 3 slots avaliable to me for other cards. Motherboard manufacturers need to take a better look at design and make motherboards that have more slots avaliable when both x16 are filled up. I wanted to get the ASUS A8N-32 SLI Deluxe motherboard, but the slot layout on that board is horrible.

Hmm, maybe when Kyle does reviews of boards he should add a score just for slot layout. There are a lot of great boards that are useless to me because of the slot layout and it would be nice if their scores reflected that.
 
I've got two firewire ports on my motherboard and one on my sound card. In that department I am not hurting even if I had a couple drives or devices to use it.

My problem is that I am physically out of unblocked slots. If I want to add a PPU I will have to lose my sound card and go to onboard audio.
 
brom42 said:
There is a space problem just due to the number of spaces video cards take up. Having more PCIe devices won't help this problem. Most modern video cards take up 2 slots meaning that anyone with a SLI or crossfire system will be using 4 of their slots just for video cards. Most motherboards only have 5 or 6 expansion slots on the board. Subtract the 4 slots for the video card and you are only left with 1 or 2 slots. No matter what they are, this isn't enough for many people. Now with PPUs coming into the picture it is even worse.

I got my motherboard (ASUS A8N-SLI Premium) because it is one of the few boards that uses all 7 expansion slots. Even with a SLI setup I still have 3 slots avaliable to me for other cards. Motherboard manufacturers need to take a better look at design and make motherboards that have more slots avaliable when both x16 are filled up. I wanted to get the ASUS A8N-32 SLI Deluxe motherboard, but the slot layout on that board is horrible.

Hmm, maybe when Kyle does reviews of boards he should add a score just for slot layout. There are a lot of great boards that are useless to me because of the slot layout and it would be nice if their scores reflected that.
Click to expand...


All SLI boards have a pcie slot still availible, you might be blocking a card or two, however it's still workable.

The A8N32 has a pcie slot on the top of the stack... so it's really out in the open but not usable unless if you had a pcie device.


The rumor is that PPU's runs hot... the real question is when are they going dual slot cooling... LOL... then we can just forget about space.
 
SLI boards are better about having a PCI-E x1 or x4 free, but the OP's motherboard does not.

I already have a few PCI x1 cards that I use. (raid controller and a tuner) You can also get PCI-e x1 firewire cards. I guess what I am saying is that there are already a bunch of PCI-e options out there and I'd rather not have my sound card eating up that slot. I'd love to see the PPUs come with the either/or type card I saw a while back.
 
I do wish that graphics card manufacturers would stop with the whole double-slot cooling solution idea, or maybe it's time that the GPU was given its own socket on the mobo...

I wouldn't mind spending more on GPUs if I wasn't throwing away perfectly good GDDR3 every upgrade. Will things ever go this way?

With more and more upgrade cards on the horizon now would be a good time :eek:
 
I'll step in for the SFF guys. I have the eVGA 6800 Ultra. Go find a pic. The HSF is massive. It covers pci slots and leaves only one open. If I put anything there in that slot, no more air for the 6800. Im kinda stuck utill we see some pci-e 1x ppu cards :(

But at least I can take my computer everywhere :rolleyes:
 
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