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PCI Slots, any reason to use one instead of another?
Lately I have heard discussion of which PCI slot to use for a new card. I
am just not familiar with this, I have always used whatever slot was convenient, and honestly I have not had problems. Is there any general rules to follow when installing new cards? Somebody said not to use the slot right next to the AGP slot because it shared an IRQ with the PCI slot and would not allow max performance. Another person has said that the fastest cards should go to the bottom of the board (furthest from the AGP) and from there on up each card should be added in order of PCI performance needed. Any truth to this? Thanks, --Dan |
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"dg" wrote in message ... Lately I have heard discussion of which PCI slot to use for a new card. I am just not familiar with this, I have always used whatever slot was convenient, and honestly I have not had problems. Is there any general rules to follow when installing new cards? Somebody said not to use the slot right next to the AGP slot because it shared an IRQ with the PCI slot and would not allow max performance. Another person has said that the fastest cards should go to the bottom of the board (furthest from the AGP) and from there on up each card should be added in order of PCI performance needed. Any truth to this? Thanks, --Dan I always skip the PCI slot nearest the AGP slot in order to provide adequate "breathing room" for the video card. Matt |
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Lately I have heard discussion of which PCI slot to use for a new card. I
am just not familiar with this, I have always used whatever slot was convenient, and honestly I have not had problems. Is there any general rules to follow when installing new cards? Use any slot, unless you find one that doesn't work -- then use any other slot. |
#4
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dg wrote:
Lately I have heard discussion of which PCI slot to use for a new card. I am just not familiar with this, I have always used whatever slot was convenient, and honestly I have not had problems. Is there any general rules to follow when installing new cards? Somebody said not to use the slot right next to the AGP slot because it shared an IRQ with the PCI slot and would not allow max performance. Another person has said that the fastest cards should go to the bottom of the board (furthest from the AGP) and from there on up each card should be added in order of PCI performance needed. Any truth to this? Thanks, --Dan IIRC the AGP slot shares a bus with the PCI slot directly underneath it. So I guess for gamers you want no possibility of "slowing down" the feed to the video card. But I don't know what PCI cards people are installing that require anywhere near the bandwidth of the GPU. TV tuner maybe? |
#5
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"o-chan" wrote in message ... dg wrote: Lately I have heard discussion of which PCI slot to use for a new card. I am just not familiar with this, I have always used whatever slot was convenient, and honestly I have not had problems. Is there any general rules to follow when installing new cards? Somebody said not to use the slot right next to the AGP slot because it shared an IRQ with the PCI slot and would not allow max performance. Another person has said that the fastest cards should go to the bottom of the board (furthest from the AGP) and from there on up each card should be added in order of PCI performance needed. Any truth to this? Thanks, --Dan IIRC the AGP slot shares a bus with the PCI slot directly underneath it. So I guess for gamers you want no possibility of "slowing down" the feed to the video card. But I don't know what PCI cards people are installing that require anywhere near the bandwidth of the GPU. TV tuner maybe? Yep, a TV tuner card sharing an IRQ with the video card will slow it down. Happened to me... |
#6
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dg wrote:
Lately I have heard discussion of which PCI slot to use for a new card. I am just not familiar with this, I have always used whatever slot was convenient, and honestly I have not had problems. Is there any general rules to follow when installing new cards? Somebody said not to use the slot right next to the AGP slot because it shared an IRQ with the PCI slot and would not allow max performance. Another person has said that the fastest cards should go to the bottom of the board (furthest from the AGP) and from there on up each card should be added in order of PCI performance needed. Any truth to this? Not to the last one. But the slot adjacent to the AGP card sharing IRQ with it is correct. That's not all the 'sharing' story though. PCI is a 4 slot standard so a motherboard with, say, 5 slots will share IRQs between, usually, slots 4 and 5. And then, on board devices are essentially PCI cards without a connector and share IRQs with SOME 'slot', which one depending on the particular motherboard design. You generally don't want I/O intensive devices sharing IRQs with each other as that increases overhead with the system figuring out which card made the request and a 'slot' can only do one thing at a time. Sound cards can be particularly problematic, not because of I/O intensity but, because of 'sound blaster' compatibility modes. The old sound blaster was an ISA card and ISA can NOT share IRQs with anything, no way no how, and that can create a situation where you have an IRQ incompatibility. (which is where the biggest caveat about putting a card in the PCI slot adjacent to AGP came from: a sound card. That will often royally mess things up). So, the biggest caveat is to avoid the PCI slot adjacent to AGP and if the card is PCI compliant then the other slots should be okay since the on-board devices should also be PCI compliant. The potential problem there being putting an I/O intensive card (tuner) in a slot that's sharing with an on-board intensive I/O device (LAN). But picking the 'end' slot and 'working up' won't necessarily solve that problem since you don't know which slot is sharing with the on-board LAN. Thanks, --Dan |
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