PCI-E dremmel action.

[hpglow]

I have read around the internet that some are having limited sucess grinding out the one side of their 1x slots and putting full size cards in there to get extra GPUs folding. Has anyone here attempted this? I can't for the life of me find anyone that has done this mod that can tell me if they get their full points value or if it hurts performance too much.

I am only asking because I have 3 1x slots on my current motherboard and if I could pack in 4 9800GTs it would boost my daily score big time even if they all ran at limited capacity.

 

[Evadman]

according to the PCI-e standard, a 16x card is supposed to work in a 1x slot, as long as it physically fits. Usually the back of the slot is open if the motherboard supports it though.

 

[PCTC2]

Originally posted by: Evadman
according to the PCI-e standard, a 16x card is supposed to work in a 1x slot, as long as it physically fits. Usually the back of the slot is open if the motherboard supports it though.

It's kinda hit and miss I thought because electrically it's 16x and might not be supported because not all the pins are connected to the motherboard. It can work in a 16x slot that's 1x electrically, but I don't know about a 1x slot that's 1x electrically.

 

[waffleironhead]

I know from experience, from having a gpu in a x16 slot, that was only allowed to run at x1 thruput, that the performance hit was in line with the decrease in bandwidth. In other words, my card received 1/16 the performance of its normal operation. So while a card may run in a x1 slot, the performance degradation may be significant enough to make the experiment worthless from a PPD standpoint.

 

[plonk420]

wasn't there an article somewhere about this? some major site somehow installed and tested PCI-e cards at 4x, 2x and 1x...? i can't seem to find it anymore

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

From what I understand and remember, I don't think it will work like you want it to. I'll try and find the articles I have read related to it though...

 

[hpglow]

Tom's did a write up on it and concluded that 4x was enough for most games. And there are some doing it in the folding forums with limited sucess but none of them have been able to give a tangible value to the amount of points they loose by using this setup. All one guy told me was that it only works well with lower end GPUs.

I may just put down the money for a board with 3X physicical 16x slots. Electronically 16x, 8x, 4x. There is one on newegg for around $120.

 

[plonk420]

i'm ASSuming if the 16x slot utilizes PCI-e 2.0 standards, the rest will, too? either Asus or MSI board stats usually seem to indicate otherwise (but then again, they sometimes get specific details slightly wrong once in a while. i guess a look at the NB might be a better idea...

 

[VirtualLarry]

You want an MSI K9A2 Platinum. 4 PCI-E x16 slots. Only "limitation", is that it's a socket AM2+ board. I think that they have a beta BIOS that takes Phenom II chips too.

 

[PCTC2]

Originally posted by: hpglow
Tom's did a write up on it and concluded that 4x was enough for most games. And there are some doing it in the folding forums with limited sucess but none of them have been able to give a tangible value to the amount of points they loose by using this setup. All one guy told me was that it only works well with lower end GPUs.

I may just put down the money for a board with 3X physicical 16x slots. Electronically 16x, 8x, 4x. There is one on newegg for around $120.

There's a lot out now. What architecture CPU do you have/want?

 

[Soggysocks]

All good things to know.