DescentBB

I have an older XPS 600 that has two PCIe X16 slots and 1 PCIe X1 slot, the machine was originally designed for SLI video, but I bought mine with only 1 card.

So the question is…

Can I use the other PCIe X16 slot for a sound card, or is that slot configured only for video, I do know that if both slots are used for video, that the PCIe X1 slot cannot be used at all. (sound card will work in any PCIe slot, except those dedicated for video)

I ask because I would prefer some room between my new card and the video card, instead of cramming it beside the video card in the PCIe X1 slot.

(the old sound card is in one of the lower PCI slots)

It will work fine in either slot. PCIe is not like AGP, you can put a video card in any slot or you can put a sound card in any slot and it should work (barring some sort of oddball BIOS screwup).

However, one thing to keep in mind is that depending on the type of system, the video card may be forced from full x16 mode down to x8 mode when you plug in an additional card, just like if you were using SLI (in which case both video cards would split the 16 lanes into x8/x8). With a single video card it doesn't really mean any measurable loss of performance though, so nothing to worry about. Just if you happened to look at a CPU-Z or GPU-Z screen and saw the video card was operating in x8 mode, that would be why.

This box is being used for music and for business applications only…so the video will never be used for gaming and such.

No Gaming…
No Video editing…
No Videos or DVDs…
No Image editing…etc…

So that’s good right?

Yeah, it'll be fine.

Great....thanks

Installation was perfect.

Thanks again Krom.