Non-graphic cards in Pci-E 8x?

[pointertovoid]

Hello everybody!

Some chipsets (I'm more interested by P45 and X48) can split their broad Pci-E in two 8x busses or even have two 16x busses. I'll probably never have several graphic cards, but I wish these mobos had expansion slots faster than Pci-E 1x. For instance, if I have in the future a raid-0 della muerte with a few Scsi disks, or a 10Gb/s Ethernet Lan, it won't fit in 250MB/s.

Yes, I know some mobos offer a 4x extension slot, but this slot reduces to 1x as soon as you use the remaining 1x slot.

Hence the question: can I use the Pci-E 8x or 16x on the MCH (Northbridge more or less) for an extension card like a Raid controller or a Lan controller? Or can it host only graphic cards? Did somebody try?

Thanks!

[DigeratiPrime]

Motherboards with the Intel X58 can do a 4*8x or 2*16x PCI-e lane config. You could do SLI, RAID, and 10Gb if you wanted on that.

Current RAID controllers that use PCI-e x8 can support 24 attached SATA drives. Current 10Gb NICs use 8x pci-e.

This motherboard has 6 16x slots at various speeds.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813131358

[pointertovoid]

Meanwhile I've found scarce experimental data on the web.

This one is old (2006) and tells that one SLI slot of the nForce4 SLI chipset may work with Areca Raid controller:

http://www.areca.us//support/download/Raid...ibilityList.zip

That is, the same chipset may or may not work - the Bios probably makes the difference.

And RocketRaid publish a compatibility list for their rr2340 controller with PciE x8 :

http://www.highpoint-tech.com/France/rr2340f.htm (I don't have it in English, alas)

There, the only mobo you find using the P45 chipset is the Ga-ep45-ds4, though many such mobos existed as of October 15, 2008. So again, it seems to be a matter of luck.

Intel itself mentions only video cards in the Sli slots.

That's why I'm looking for experimental observations.

[puntoMX]

Intel itself mentions only video cards in the Sli slots.

That's why I'm looking for experimental observations.

PCI-E you mean, but it doesn´t matter what you put into the PCI-E slots at all. I would contact the card producer and ask them with what motherboards that RAID-card could/would work, for sure they will give you a list of server boards and they will tell you that it should work on any 16x form PCI-E sloth, connected to the Northbridge or not...

[pointertovoid]

No no, the doc for the Areca Raid controller tells that the controller works with some mobos having the nForce4 SLI chipset but does NOT work (as an observation fact) with other mobos having the same nForce4 SLI chipset. This refers to the SLI slots especially.

That's why I'm looking for experimental data indeed. Computers don't work as one would imagine. Having a Raid card working in an SLI slot depends on if the guy who programmed the Bios thought at it or not - and maybe on if the chipset does have this capability.

Intel tells that the Pci-E on the MCH are meant for graphic cards, on every Intel document I've seen so far, so it wouldn't be surprising that many mobos and Bioses don't allow this possibility.