Sound card Placement

[Randolla]

Right now I have my video cards in PCI3.0 slots 1 & 3. They are working fine like this. I am thinking about getting this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829271006 sound card and putting it in the PCI express 2.0 slot between them. As you can see, it has a very low profile and shouldn't interfere with my SLI bridge.

I am also running an Samsung XP941 in the M2 slot.

This should work OK correct? Am I missing anything that would cause this not to work correctly?

Does anyone have a soundcard between their GPUs and does it work correctly? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thank you all in advance.

[Onimax]

Are your GPUs under water? then I don't see any problem.
Otherwise it should also be OK but the top Card might get a little bit hotter - which might have absoluetly no negative impact at all. Worst case scenario is that it impacts the thermal target of your GPUs a little decreasing gfx performance by a minimal amount (just saying...worst case!)

On the other hand you could also opt for the bottom most pcie 2.0 slot (PCIE_X1_1 I guess) which than might impact just the bottom card a little bit - but as the slave card in SLI usually does not get as hot as the master card this might also be an option.

Either way works and I would suggest once you have the card just play around with it a little bit and see what fits best - technically your are good to go as long as you do not put it in the PCIE_X8_4. 🙂

[Randolla]

My GPUs are not underwater. I have many fans in a great case so I have pretty good airflow. My GPU's get to about 73 C and 65C when I play BF4 at 2560 X 1440 at 118 Hz with everything cranked up.

[Gphish]

Onimax wrote:
Are your GPUs under water? then I don't see any problem.
Otherwise it should also be OK but the top Card might get a little bit hotter - which might have absoluetly no negative impact at all. Worst case scenario is that it impacts the thermal target of your GPUs a little decreasing gfx performance by a minimal amount (just saying...worst case!)

On the other hand you could also opt for the bottom most pcie 2.0 slot (PCIE_X1_1 I guess) which than might impact just the bottom card a little bit - but as the slave card in SLI usually does not get as hot as the master card this might also be an option.

Either way works and I would suggest once you have the card just play around with it a little bit and see what fits best - technically your are good to go as long as you do not put it in the PCIE_X8_4. 🙂

Why would you not want to put the sound card in the PCIE X 8_4 slot?

I am going to do TRI- SLI and Im going to have a sound card and was planning to put it into the PCIE X 8_4 slot
Now I know it will change to 8x8x8x8 right? sorry if im wrong but either way I don't mind cause in TRI SLI not to much impact on the gamming performance

[Chino]

Yes, it should work.

[Onimax]

@Randolla: Well then, no problem there 😄

@Gphish: the 8_4 slot's bandwidth is also occupied by the M.2 if one is installed. And as Randolla uses a XP941 this is a no no.
If you plan on doing Tri-SLI with an additional sound card and do not use a M.2 device then there shouldn't be a problem.

[Gphish]

Does the SAMSUNG XP941 go into a PCI Express slot? If so I cant cram it into there with the TRI-SLI and the sound card right?

[Chino]

The Samsung XP941 is installed into the M.2 slot which shares bandwidth with the PCIE_X8_4 slot.

[Randolla]

Chino wrote:
The Samsung XP941 is installed into the M.2 slot which shares bandwidth with the PCIE_X8_4 slot.

Exactly. I knew that I cannot use the PCIE_X8_4 slot if I have an M2 which I do.

[Gphish]

Thanks guys I will stick with raid ssd'd then.