SLI - does it block all PCI slots?

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SiliconValley

Limp Gawd
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Sep 22, 2005
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I just received my Asus P5W Dh Deluxe mobo and I noticed that I were to go with an 8800 SLI setup, it would seem to block off all available PCI slots. How do people use SLI and still manage to have a sound card and/or TV Tuner?
 
My SLI boards always have at least one PCi slot............I have 8800GTX SLI at present and use the bottom slot for the X-Fi.
 
The middle PCI slot is available and used for a X-Fi card. I use a PCI-e X1 card for TV input. There is also more such as the Saber 2020 Dual Analog PCIe MCE TV-FM Tuner Card
 
I had 2 out of 3 pci slots open with SLI...more than enough since an Audigy 2 is the only pci device I still use.
 
Both my PCI slots were free when I used the stock coolers on my 7800GTX SLI setup. Cooling was not great of course.
 
I have an 8800gtx SLi setup and a Sound Blaster X-fi nicely nestled between them. . . even though they are double-slot cards.

Depends on the motherboard. But there's usually at least one PCI slot open.
 
SiliconValley said:
I just received my Asus P5W Dh Deluxe mobo and I noticed that I were to go with an 8800 SLI setup, it would seem to block off all available PCI slots. How do people use SLI and still manage to have a sound card and/or TV Tuner?
Click to expand...

I just thought i'd say that, for a start, your motherboard isn't compatible with an 8800 SLi setup. Motherboards intended for use with SLi, like the 680i, tend to have a free PCI slot even with 2 x dual slot cards fitted, like Hurin said.
 
er..........yes, your board can do Crossfire if I'm not incorrect, you'd still have space to use at least 1 PCI slot.:eek:

But that board will not allow SLI.
 
It depends on the board layout. I have one PCI slot (which holds my soundcard) but my motherboard only had two to begin with because it has 2x PCI-E 1x and 1x PCI-E 4x (not that I can use those...they're under the HSFs for my 7900GTXs)
 
yea i've only got one useable pci slot with my two 7900 GTO's installed. and barely. i got an x-fi in that slot so all i have left is a pci-e 1x slot. i also noticed that the top GTO has higher temps due to the x-fi almost right against the GTO fan. ghey. can't wait to get the watercooling set up.
 
Mansize_tissue said:
I just thought i'd say that, for a start, your motherboard isn't compatible with an 8800 SLi setup. Motherboards intended for use with SLi, like the 680i, tend to have a free PCI slot even with 2 x dual slot cards fitted, like Hurin said.
Click to expand...

Are you sure? Why wouldn't it allow 8800s to run in SLI?
 
AuroraProject said:
It's not an Nvidia chipset board. You can go Crossfire, but not SLI on that board.
Click to expand...

Is it that it's just not officially supported or will it plain not work? It's not a big deal as I'm not planning to SLI, I was just wondering on the off chance that I got the SLI bug.
 
SiliconValley said:
Are you sure? Why wouldn't it allow 8800s to run in SLI?
Click to expand...

Also, because it uses the 975x chipset, the PCI-e lanes are reduced to 8x instead of 16x, required for 8800s, when two cards are used. I believe it was possible use older nVidia cards from the 6 and 7 series in SLi since they only required 8x PCI-e slots, however 'hacked' drivers had to be used.
 
SiliconValley said:
Is it that it's just not officially supported or will it plain not work? It's not a big deal as I'm not planning to SLI, I was just wondering on the off chance that I got the SLI bug.
Click to expand...

It wont support it because it lacks the required onboard controllers, and the 16x pci lanes. It's simply not an SLI motherboard. Just because it has multiple pci express slots doesn't mean it can do SLI.
 
It is true that you need hacked drivers to get SLi working on that Intel-based motherboard. And there have been no such drivers made available for the 8800s as far as I know. However, to my knowledge, 8800s do not require 16x lanes nor is there any other limitation imposed by the lack of chipset support. The restriction is totally in the drivers themselves and is not hardware based.
 
8800 gtx will perform just fine in 8x PCI-e lanes. I have run two in an ASUS 650i MB just fine, thank you. You can read the hard ocp review of the ASUS P5N-E SLI if you dont believe me.

The ASUS P5W does not have the nVidia chipset to support SLI, which is why it wont run dual nVidia GPUs. It will handle dual ATI cards in Crossfire.
 
Hurin said:
It is true that you need hacked drivers to get SLi working on that Intel-based motherboard. And there have been no such drivers made available for the 8800s as far as I know. However, to my knowledge, 8800s do not require 16x lanes nor is there any other limitation imposed by the lack of chipset support. The restriction is totally in the drivers themselves and is not hardware based.
Click to expand...

Set up an SLI system without a bridge and then tell me it's not hardware restricted.
 
So with the P5W dh Deluxe and an Nvidia card, the second PCI-Express slot is pretty much useless?
 
defaultluser said:
Exactly. Bridgeless SLI with only 8x slots is a waste. You really need 16x slots to use high-end cards without the bridge.
Click to expand...

Bridgeless SLI is a completely separate issue from 8X vs. 16X SLI. Obviously any high-end SLI implementation requires a bridge connector (even with both slots operating at 16X), and since non-SLI "approved" motherboards don't include one, that's another hurdle. But such a connector can be obtained.

From a practical standpoint, of course, having to locate hacked drivers AND a bridge connector is good incentive to buy the proper motherboard in the first place.
 
SiliconValley said:
So with the P5W dh Deluxe and an Nvidia card, the second PCI-Express slot is pretty much useless?
Click to expand...

Some people like to have multiple video cards to run more monitors. You can run 4 monitors off of 2 video cards.

Also, PCI-e slots are scalable, so you can run a 1X or 4X card in that 16X slot, so it's not a total waste if you don't want crossfire or a 4 head setup. At least that is my understanding, I have never tried this myself.
 
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