3rd PCI Express card...

[KBTuning]

ive got a 780i mobo from EVGA and im running 9600GT's in SLi on it but i have a 32" TV that iw ould like to be able to watch movies on or whatever i please, well ive also go my old Sapphire X800GTO2 that is unlocked and is PCI Express... now the question is, Will it work?

im asking before i try it because i tried to put it in the other day and the Arctic Cooling Silencer fan his the back of the lower 9600GT so id have to put the stock cooling back on it...

i know that you have to use a non-nVidia card if you run a 3rd on a PCI slot but will it work with PCI Express... and if so is it going to be 8x or 16x?

 

[Cuular]

Based on my 680i motherboards layout of the PCI-e stuff, the 3rd slot is 8x. You have the 2 16x, and 1 8x. I don't see why the ATI card wouldn't work in that slot.

edit:
According to EVGA's manual for the 680i board, all three of the slots are 16x. So if it works, the 3rd card should be 16x as well.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Not sure if it WILL work, but is SHOULD work. There are PCI-e x1 physical (and obviously electrical) cards that are actually produced, obviously intended for non 3D intensive use and perfect for adding support for additional monitors. A 3rd x16 physical slot should be able to operate at any PCI-e bandwidth (x1,x2,x4,x8,x16) so even if the SLI cards take up most all the PCI-e lanes available, whatever is left for the 3rd card to drive an additional monitor should be more than enough.

Of course this is all how PCI-e is supposed to work, but thanks to drivers/glitches/incompatibility there is always a chance it might not.

 

[Dudewithoutapet]

I believe there may be driver clashing errors, but thats me. The idea of using other PCI-E cards just as an output card is new to me too. I think this is a very interesting question and idea, but I doubt it would work or work well at this point. What is wrong with just attaching the TV to the 9600GTs?

 

[aka1nas]

You can't do this in Vista. All display adapters must use the same WDDM driver. Even with a 3rd Nvidia card it will not work, as the Forceware drivers will disable the 3rd card when you try to enable SLI.