Motherboards Asus Maximus IV Extreme Z bandwidth question

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by SwitchBl4De, 15 Aug 2012.

  1. SwitchBl4De

    SwitchBl4De What's a Dremel?

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    Hi,
    Have the above board installed with an Intel I7 2600K, 16GB Corsair Vengeance LP DDR3 1600mhz memory and 2 x Gainward GTX 580's in sli.
    Basically before I installed the 2nd GTX 580 I had a creative SB X-Fi Fatality Pro installed in PCI-E slot 4 which is a x16 slot, and the graphics card in the top nearest to the cpu. When I installed the 2nd GTX 580 I put this in PCI-E slot 5 which is 16x, since this the sound card stopped detecting in device manager and not knowing about this bandwidth issue I RMA'd the card but the vendor found no fault with the sound card and advised me of the possible bandwidth limitations.
    So basically my question is with a 580 in slot 1 and a 580 in slot 5 would this cause slot 4 to stop detecting?

    One of the 580's is a gainward phantom which is 2.5 slot width so any other configuration would have the cards too close together, I believe in this config im using the nf-200 ( can anyone confirm this ? ) which ive read may give a very slight performance decrease but nothing noticeable and to be honest id rather have more breating room between the cards anyway.

    If this is the case and the cause of the sound card stopping being detected was the fact that id added another 580 and therefore using the pci-e bandwidth then ill probably keep the x-Fi as a spare and get an external card for the 5.1 speakers, as I also use a Corsair HS-1 headset which I use aswell, which has its own built in sound card. So I only need a card to run the speakers and an external one would do fine.

    Thanks for any info!
     
  2. SwitchBl4De

    SwitchBl4De What's a Dremel?

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    /bump
    can anyone confirm this please if this config would stop the pci-e 4 from detecting?

    Thanks.
     
  3. narwen

    narwen narwen

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    i think by using slot 5 you have engaged the nf-200 chip which turns the first slot in to a 16 lane
    slot so no lanes available for slot 4
     
  4. SwitchBl4De

    SwitchBl4De What's a Dremel?

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    Thanks that would make sense, if I move the card in slot 5 to 4 the graphics cards would be very close together so ill probably just get an external sound card and leave the graphics cards as they are.
    Thanks for confirming.
     

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