Three PCI-E x16s?

A

Arm_Pit3

New Member
What is the point of having 3 PCI-e x16 slots? Even the motherboard depscrption syas you can connect 2 nvidia cards to it. not three, yet their are threes slots.
 
the third could be a sound card, used as a standard PCI slot (i think) PhysX card a third videocard (not in SLI, but as a stand alone display card), TV Tuner....
 
PCI Express isn't just for graphics you know... Another other slower ports can use graphics cards as well. I mean some workstation cards are PCI Express 1x!
 
no... but it can be used for other expansion cards... i have a feeling thats what you meant.
im not sure what, but there must be other expansion cards for pci-express x16.
 
i was talking about the old 33MHz PCI slot, but i guess i was wrong, i know you can use a 16X slot as a 1X throguh 16X slot
 
technically, that doesnt change the fact that its an x16 slot or an x8 slot though. the card doesnt have to use all 16 lanes.. and the slot doesnt have to be a full x16 slot for an x16 card to work in it. for instance my SLI mobo has two x16 compatible slots, but they each work with 8 lanes adding up to x16... so my card isnt being used at its full potential really. it doesnt effect performance THAT much, it will in the future though.
Jet said:
For the new ATi setup, you need 2 cards in crossfire and 1 for physics
Click to expand...
yea, they had 3 x1900xtx's and a core 2 duo in that setup and two cards were for graphics one was for physics.. it was really cool :D
 
The_Other_One said:
PCI Express isn't just for graphics you know... Another other slower ports can use graphics cards as well. I mean some workstation cards are PCI Express 1x!
Click to expand...
I know, but thats a different slot, the baord i was looking at had 3 PCI-E x16s one x1 and 1 x4
 
Arm_Pit said:
I know, but thats a different slot, the baord i was looking at had 3 PCI-E x16s one x1 and 1 x4
Click to expand...
There were some older models (particularly a jetway model) that had this configuration so that no SLi paddle's were needed.

With newer boards I guess its for more flexibilty with card configurations, as was said already a PCIe card can work in a larger PCIe slot. Actualy some 4X PCIe slots are open ended, so you can fit a 16 X graphic card in them.
 
nahh... a graphics card used for physics is a very useful tool, but you need special drivers for it... and a system that compatible. it'd be tough to work out, but theyre going to make it available someday soon i'll bet. :D
 
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