Running card in secondary slot?

[Captain Fizz]

Hello folks,

I have an Asus A8N32-SLi and a 7900GT.

I am looking at a RAID card and already have a sound card - The only thing is - Due to having the Zalman GPU cooler on there, the RAID/Sound card would only give 5mm clearance from the top of the Zalman. :s

Is it OK to run your GFX card in the slot furthest away from the CPU?
I never even considered it until this morning...

Basically wondering if it's an SLi only slot, or if you can run the GFX card from the secondary slot with no performance difference.

That would then give me the clearance to have both cards in the first 2 PCI slots.

Thanks.

 

[LoadsaMoney]

Taken from a review :-

The heatpipes are blocking access to certain parts of the motherboard and a graphics card with a large passive heatsink on the back might not work in the top slot. However, something like the Asus Extreme N7800 GT Dual – that’s the huge dual-chip 7800 GT card from Asus (review coming soon) – fits in the lower slot. This might sound odd, but as this is the primary x16 PCI Express slot it makes sense.

Can't link to it as theres a competitor advertising on it, but sounds to me like it will be fine from that.

 

[Captain Fizz]

...but as this is the primary x16 PCI Express slot it makes sense..

LOL - It sounds like it would be the better one even!

Thanks for that. Couldn't find out after a fair bit of searching.
Just need to ensure the USB/Front Panel wires don't interfere with the fitting of the card.

 

[Dutch Guy]

Most likely it will work but check the manual (or website) as perhaps you need to change the PCIe channels to get 16 lanes to the bottom slot.

 

[Captain Fizz]

...but check the manual...

After about 25 mins waiting for a few MB file...

In Single Card mode, you may use either the blue or black slot for PCI Express x16 graphics cards.

Ahhhh.

ASUS Download site is as slow as ever. But thanks for the advice chaps.

 

[Raikiri]

Done it just fine with my Asus P5ND2 SLi Deluxe, just had to set it to SLi mode.