adding sound card, can I?

[2Old2Geek]

Not sure if I am posting in the correct location, to many option for an old fart like me but he goes.


I have a Maximus V Extreme MB with dual SLI video. I want to add a sound card to it but because I have the cards in slot 1 and 2b the sound card will not fit in the slot appointed for it.




Can I reconfigure slot #4 (x16) for it? Will it affect the speed of slots 1 and 2b (video cards)? I do not want to mess up my video speed.


Thanks

 

[SavageCupcake]

aslong as the soundcard is pci express it will fit in any pcie slot. Mine is in my second x16 slot. I'm not sure how it will play with sli but it should work fine

 

[2Old2Geek]

WOW. That was fast. Thank you.


OK, I will add a little more info then.


The video cards are the GTX670s and the sound card is the Xonar Phoebus. I have looked through the motherboard manual and see nothing about changing the (I hope I get this right) x16 slot into an x1, but I do remember seeing in bios that I could reconfigure them.


Is it necessary, or will the card plug and play and the board know what I am attempting?


Will doing this change the speed of my video cards. I think as they are it is 8 X 8 as apposed to 8 X 4 if the sound card takes the slot of an x16 rather than an x1.


I hope I am making sense here.

 

[SavageCupcake]

I've had a look on the asus website and there is a pcie 4x slot on there. It should work in that slot fine assuming your card layout allows it to be used.

 

[2Old2Geek]

Thank you for the reply and your interest in assisting me.
As stated in the first post, the sound card will not fit in the x4 slot... Not without risking grounding the card against the video card in 2b or blocking the air flow to same.

That is the problem, I want the video cards to retain their speed but I also want the sound card installed.

Maybe there is a way to link this post to the new build forum, maybe someone there has run into this before. I don't want to double post.

 

[iBeInspire]

The motherboard support 4-way SLI, which means that even if all the red slots are populated with GPUs, non of them will drop below 8x.

Since your cards are both already at 8x, I'd say just stick the sound card in since the bandwidth can't get any lower

 

[2Old2Geek]

I could be wrong, but my understanding of this board is that

1 card = x16
2 cards = 8 x 8
3 cards = 8 x 4 x 4
4 cards = 4 x 4 x 4 x 4

my only concern is that if i install the sound card into slot 4 it will change my 8 x 8 to 8 x 4.

I dont want to appear unappreciative for any of your advice because i most certainly am, i just want to get it right. Hope you understand that.

 

[Snortan]

In a quad sli/xfire setup the board works at x8/x16/x8/x8, it says so on the website and in the manual so it should be no problem.

 

[2Old2Geek]

thanks. so plug and play it is....