What happened to all the slots?

[imported_boe]

I was looking at the online manual for the Abit AT8. In the manual they show it with 2 video cards installed. Because of the fan, one of the PCI slots is covered - leaving you with 1 that may or may not be blocked by the video card.

I'd like to use some of my existing cards

1 SCSI card
1 X-FI sound card
1 network card (I want two different types on my system - easier to identify)
1 FAX modem - for faxing
Who knows what I might add down the road.

Most of the other AMD x2 SLI and crossfire motherboards seem to have the same issue.

Also I'd like to have at least 6 if not 8 usb on the board directly.

 

[junkyardDawg]

yeah, what bugs me about the crossfire boards is even if you run a single dual-slot card you have to install it in the bottom pci-e slot, leaving 1 (maybe2) pci slot open.

 

[rgreen83]

What is the question?

 

[imported_boe]

Originally posted by: rgreen83
What is the question?

My question should have been - are there going to be any new motherboards that support SLI or crossfire with more PCI slots?


I'd like to be able to put in a few cards.

 

[potato28]

Nope, unless you wanna buy the nF4 Ultra boards. They only have 1 PCI-E slot, but much more PCI slots.

 

[imported_boe]

Are the boards shorter than they used to be or is it that the crossfire/sli config use so much space for the dual video?

 

[jakesdad]

Originally posted by: boe
Are the boards shorter than they used to be or is it that the crossfire/sli config use so much space for the dual video?

The boards aren't shorter if they all follow the ATX standard of 12 inches long. But the number and layout of the slots differ from board to board. Even there, you have to watch for how many are PCIe or just standard PCI.

I assume all those cards you mentioned are all standard PCI cards. Remember that those won't fit in the new PCIe (PCI-Express) slots.

Of the nForce 4 based boards, the most standard PCI slots I've seen were 4 on boards made by MSI and Foxxconn. But Crossfire/SLI boards reduces that even more. As you noted they bury one PCIe slot between the two PCIe16 video slots making it useless when you actually have two of the double-thick video cards in place. You also bury the next slot down with that second card as well.

The ATX standard actually allows space for 7 slots, but most MB makers don't even have a slot in the first position - the one closest to the I/O connector area.

It's one reason I didn't go for SLI in getting my nForce 4 Ultra Abit KN8 (which actually has 7 slots). Other than the fact that SLI does absolutely nothing for what I do, I needed at least 3 PCI slots and that's what it had. I also needed good expansion for later and it has 3 more PCIe slots for when more expansion card makers start making more PCIe cards. And my video card (taking the single PCIe16 slot) is not a double-wide taking up space.

Joel

 

[Peter]

Use an external modem (plenty catching dust everywhere, at least in DSL-enabled countries), and/or migrate the network card to PCIE 1x or buy a board with twin onboard LAN.