pci slots questions

[majistik]

In my mother board i have 3 slots (im using them all).
And i wish to buy another creamware card...
I have understood that there is a way to connect the two cards together
can it be done without more pci slots?

is there any way to expand and add more pci slots to my motherboard (i have core 2 duo)

Thank you you guys are so helpful to me!

[majistik]

Hi thank you.
I have taken a look on the "magama" even before.
It seems to connect to the motherboard via pci and give me 7 extra pci slots

That mean that each one of the slots will be extreamly slow. no?
the PCI speed is about 500 mega per sec...
So each pci slot in "magama" will be abot 70... am i right?

[kylie]

I have taken a look on the "magama" even before.
It seems to connect to the motherboard via pci and give me 7 extra pci slots

well, there are several boxes. 1, 2, 4, 7 and 13 slots.
a current model gives you the choice of connecting them via pci and pci-e (x1), and the cardbus/expresscard variants.
if 4 slots are sufficient, go for that and connect it via pci-e (since you have a core2duo capable board, you should have some slots of that kind).
you shouldn't have to worry about bandwidth then, too.

-greetings, markus-

[majistik]

What?
PCI express X1 is slower then a normal PCI

PCI EXPRESS X1 speed is 250 MB/s

[kylie]

What?
PCI express X1 is slower then a normal PCI

PCI EXPRESS X1 speed is 250 MB/s

sorry, that's wrong. conventional pci is only around 500MB/s at 64bit bus width and 66mHz bus speed. most of your cards are probably operating with 32bit/33mHz, which leads to a common specified bandwidth of 133MB/s, while it is actually about 127MB/s.

your cw cards are 32/33, that's for sure.

-greetings, markus-

[majistik]

So that means...
That in order to use 100% of the pci speed (which is kind of slow anyway)
I need a 2 slot "magama"...
I dont think i will do that...

Thank you anyway! you were all very helpful

[kylie]

I can't tell how much pci bandwidth is actually needed by our beloved cw cards, especially when grouping them, but those cases are (among other stuff) build for setups with up to (7, afaik) protools cards, so this is maybe just a theroretical discussion. maybe the real magma users (I'm only theroretically one) can tell some hints and experience here.

-greetings, markus-