Asus M4A78-E without Switch Card

[eddie_al]

Hi all,

I am planning to get a X-Fi Titanium pcie, but my pci slot fan is blocking the area for the available pcie slots.

i know the easiest solution is to just remove the pci slot fan, but it has been helping in keeping the graphic card's temp low (this board oddly places the primary 16x pcie at the bottom)

my question is; can i remove the switch card and put the soundcard in its place? or will it cause my graphic card to run in max 8x as i think what it states in the manual. (i think)

the arrangement of slot is like this:

• 16x pcie (switch card)

• pcie (partially blocked by fan)

• pcie (partially blocked by fan)

• 16x pcie (g card)

[Adrian Wong]

AFAICS, you should not have any problem swapping the switch card with your X-Fi Titanium PCI-E card.

Check the BIOS. You should be able to set it to x16 x1 mode, like this - Tech ARP - PCI Express Selector

[eddie_al]

i see. so u r suggesting that in the BIOS it is left default as Auto, which is why they provide the switch card? Ok, I will look into this. Thx for the reply~!

Edit:
Found this off the internet. "This switch card is used to split the PCIe x16 lanes. If you want to use a single PCIe x16 card you put this card into the lower x16 slot; when this is done all 16 lanes are diverted to the top slot. When the card is removed, 8 lanes are taken from the top slot and diverted to the lower slot, giving an 8/8 setup." - Im still at office, so i can only check it out later when i get back.

Edit 2:
Back @ home. Did the setting in the BIOS as suggested, 1 slot allows up to x16, and i selected it. The other one only allows up to x8, so i left it at auto. (since i took out the Switch Card, so nothing there)
The result:-
Both cpu-z & gpu-z shows the slot max at x16 @ x8...
So it didnt work~!

What to do now? Forced to use the switch card and give up the slot fan? If you can tell me how to upload photo, i can upload a SS of the cpu-z & gpu-z.

[Chai]

You definitely need the switch card plugged in to disable the 8x/8x split. But you can swap the slots.

[eddie_al]

Did the slot swap for the whole night. Still the same. The only way to enable x16 on the primary pcie is via switch card place in the secondary pcie.

so what i did after that was finding a consolation price. hit ran 3dmark06 and compare the performance hit between x16 and x8 now, and suprisingly the drop was almost none. If i use AMD Fusion together AOD 3, the drop can be recovered with higher fps.

so thx for the reply. i think i will buy asus xonar instead of x-fi.

[Chai]

Just wondering what card are you using?

Well, I knew all along 16x is overated. 8x does just as well on most cards, even some higher end cards.

[eddie_al]

As the other thread states, a proud owner of the 4830, =). (sapphire model, the one that takes up the whole 2 slot)

Am really satisfied with the buy. In fact, the kind of performance i am getting when i got this new rig makes me miss the days when 'high-end' proc was the no-brainer overclocking P4-C, and 'high-end' gpu was ati 9800 pro. things certainly has changed alot at the same price level.

[Chai]

Ah...so do I. I'm using 4830 since I hardly game now, and I wanted to 'downgrade' from 8800GTS which I was using over a year ago. This card is excellent value for money.

[eddie_al]

excellent value indeed. being a novice overclocker, tools provided by AMD/ATI are heaven-sent. altho the stability of fusion is questionable (sometimes it fails to restore certain services it disabled for the performance enhancement & were forced to restart) but still, anything that works with 1 click, i guess its hardly a huge minus, =).

[Adrian Wong]

Originally Posted by eddie_al

i see. so u r suggesting that in the BIOS it is left default as Auto, which is why they provide the switch card? Ok, I will look into this. Thx for the reply~!

Edit:
Found this off the internet. "This switch card is used to split the PCIe x16 lanes. If you want to use a single PCIe x16 card you put this card into the lower x16 slot; when this is done all 16 lanes are diverted to the top slot. When the card is removed, 8 lanes are taken from the top slot and diverted to the lower slot, giving an 8/8 setup." - Im still at office, so i can only check it out later when i get back.

Edit 2:
Back @ home. Did the setting in the BIOS as suggested, 1 slot allows up to x16, and i selected it. The other one only allows up to x8, so i left it at auto. (since i took out the Switch Card, so nothing there)
The result:-
Both cpu-z & gpu-z shows the slot max at x16 @ x8...
So it didnt work~!

What to do now? Forced to use the switch card and give up the slot fan? If you can tell me how to upload photo, i can upload a SS of the cpu-z & gpu-z.

Wow.. That's a dumb solution. They can actually do it without the "switch card" by using a BIOS option, like the one I pointed out.

In any case, the performance difference between 8-lanes and 16-lanes isn't that significant. In view of your situation, you can do without 16-lane PCI-E.