My server only has PCI-E 8x slots. I bought a extender card to run a 16x in my 8x slot. Strangely enough my system only boots up with particular video cards. So far 8800GTS DOES not work, but a 7800GTX did work. What is the most powerful PCI-E x16 should I get. Ovbiousley I will be limited by the 8x slot. Any suggestions would be great.

Do you prefer Nvidia to ATI or otherwise or do you have no preference? Which 8800 GTS do you mean? 640, 512, 320MB?

in theory, any pci-e card will work in that slot. obviously you will be performance limited a bit, but tom's did some tests on this a few months back and found that it wasn't such a huge difference. strange that the 8800GTS didn't work. but that could be a psu issue rather than a motherboard issue. im pretty sure that an 8800GTS uses more power than a 7800GTX.

The 8800 GTS 640 and 320 are PCIe 1.0 16x cards so they might work. Otherwise the 7900 GTX looks a good card to me.

The reason it doesn't work is because DELL put in BIOS limitations on the motherboard/ video cards. They didn't want people buying cheap server and converting them to powerful gaming rigs.

So the "EVEA 8800GT superclocked" just forced the comp to continuously reboot. I stuck in the EVEA 7800GTX in and it worked. As far as the power supply is concerned it's not a issue. This is a server with Duel Redundant 930W power supply.

As far as the video card preference, I don't really care. I have always used Nvidia but wouldn't care if a ATI was in system. I just really don't want to spend money on a video card that I would only be able to use half the power.

As far as I know the only other person on the web that has done this got a "8800gts fatal1ty" working. I am not sure if it is the chipset on the video cards or just the make that is causing the system to reboot. Do note that I do see the initial BIOS and system bootup, it's when it attempts to go into the BIOS or to the next step in the process that it tweaks out.

I will look into thoese cards Nils and see what I come up with.

Also what article are you referring to Nik_I. I heard the same info, but havent seen any benchmarking on the issue.

Thanks all

Steve

Do note since I had to use a riser card that video card sits in the the power plug in the video card has to be in the back and I will need access to both monitors, so it looks like the ATI cards wont work since the S-Video is inbetween the two monitor plugs.

What are your guys suggestions about the, "EVGA 9800 GT Superclocked 512MB" A card that supports Physx and CUDA is a bonus for me...

Thanks for any suggestions.

Steve

Here is that article that about PCI-E scaleing....

http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] ,1915.html

Does Dell make their own mobo's? If not you can just try upgrading the bios.

It could be that this is just a compatiblity problem. The 8800 GT is a PCIe 2.0 card and I've seen some people having problems when inserting a PCIe 2.0 card in a PCIe 1.0 16x slot. So the compatibility might be even worse when putting a card like that in a PCIe 8x slot. I'm not sure, it's only a suggestion.

If a 8800 GT doesn't work, I don't see a reason why a 9800 GT would.

If it is a problem due to your bios or chipset, it's just a game we're playing. Every card you try is just a gamble. Some may work, others might not.
And if I'm allowed to gamble on this forum, I would say the card I suggested might work. It's from the same series as the one that did work, only this one is faster. Another gamble: an 'older' card from the 8800 series might work too (I mean the ones based on the G80 GPU like the Ultra and the GTX)