PCIe X8

I've never seen a true pcie x8 card. You can try this mod to use a x16 card.
http://www.tkdan.com/SC420/

Their backwards compatible. as long as it's PCIe you're fine.

Thanks orangegator!

I just read that link, and they're even talking about my server...

I'm going to try that mod.

My box is also a 2.8 P4, 500G HD/150G HD but 1 gig of RAM, which will go to 2, or 4Gig soon.

I found 4 Gig of DDR2 for $30 on craigslist, but it was 2 X 2Gig and my server has a 1Gig limit per slot, so I'll need 4 X 1Gig, or another 2 - 512M if I go to 2Gig. 2 X 512M is only $20 plus shipping directly from Dell...

I opened an account on Dell.com to ask a few questions, re: which PCIe video card, and about the memory.
The next day I received an email about extending my warranty for $799 for one year, or $1038 for 2 years.

I paid $319 delivered to my house, almost 5 years ago, with 512M, and an 80G HD...

As long as you have a spare PCIe x8 slot you should use it for graphics.

Just get a PCIe graphics card based on need. If you need a low-end why not get a $50 fanless one.

The SC420 has on board video, but that uses my RAM, and it won't run a lot of graphic intensive software.

I use it as a desktop for everything.

pciiexpress is a lot better than pci. A 1x pcie will be more than sufficient for anything short of gaming.

You got it! I'll do a follow up, once I get it done.

Here's the SC420 PCIe slot:

I did this modification with great success on my SC1420

What I did was to remove these tiny two "blockers" (red circle) with a regular dremel multi tool.
Before you start, remover all the ram, cpus, fans, and power cord.
If you dont have antistatic gear, touch the frame where there is direct connection to metal
several times, several places.
[img][/img]

Remember: Cut VERY carefully when you approach the actual pins.
At first there are no pins (circled in blue) but at the second "blocker" there are
working pins for the PCIe card.
[img][/img]

I used a very sharp scalpel the very last way to carve off the remains.
Be very careful about the two transistors that are on the side of the pcie 8x slot, and
not to cut in the pins inside the slot.

I then put my ASUS EN8600GT card in and it worked like a charm!
Now I have the ultimate working machine. 2 x 3.6Ghz XEON CPUs, 8 GB RAM and
an ok card for screen.
[img][/img]

I got to let you know that I have read several places that some cases with doing this
with the sc420 hasnt worked, as the pin number on them are somewhat different, but I do not
know if that is correct. You better check it yourself by counting or seeing if there are pins at the end.