GT 430 on PCIe 2.0 x4

[nemesis4895]

Currently on computer I have a GTX 460 running two 1080p monitors. I want to add a third 1280 x 1024 res monitor I have laying around as a dedicated monitor to my e-mail. I have a bad habit of minimizing it and not remember to look at it for hours. I have an Asus P8H67-Pro mobo, which means I have one PCIe 2.0 x16 slot and one PCIe 2.0 x4 slot. I want to add my spare video card, GT 430, to the x4 slot to run only the e-mail monitor. So...

1. Is it possible to have these two separate cards in a motherboard as long as they're NOT SLI'd?
2. Will the GT 430 run on an x4 slot?

 

[rolli59]

1 Yes
2 Yes

 

[k1114]

You could use the igpu through your mobo which supports up to 2 more monitors. But the 430 will work in a x4 and not need sli, not that it could.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

1 - yes
2 - yes
Seriously, you have all the necessary parts so just try it. At the worst you will have issues getting the monitors set up properly in the display settings. It all sounds a bit extreme just to monitor your email. Have you ever thought of something like a Logitech G15 keyboard. it has an LCD display that will alert you to new mail messages, can show RSS feeds amoong other things.

 

[nemesis4895]

Best answer selected by nemesis4895.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

X4 2.0 slots do not hold back cards of any gen atm.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GTX_480_PCI-Express_Scaling/12.html yes they do.

 

[nemesis4895]

You could use the igpu through your mobo which supports up to 2 more monitors. But the 430 will work in a x4 and not need sli, not that it could.

How would I go about doing this? I don't see any options anywhere in the OS or the BIOS that would allow this.

 

[k1114]

As long as the option in the bios is set to enabled for the igpu just plug in your monitor. The monitor needs to be plugged in before you turn the pc on of course. And you'd probably want the driver installed beforehand as well.

 

[nemesis4895]

All of that is enabled, yet it still doesn't work =/

 

[k1114]

Try setting igpu to primary. Try unplugging the other monitors so you know the igpu can work at all.

 

[nemesis4895]

I did that. iGPU works perfect. When I set it to PEG/iGPU, the 3rd monitor doesnt even show up.

 

[k1114]

The monitor in the igpu? Have you tried 2 monitors?

 

[4745454b]

From your hard link.

n Aliens vs. Predator at 2560x1600 with 4X AA we do see some performance differences by downgrading to x4/x4 PCIe. The average framerate is lower, but not huge, what pops out at me more is the minimum framerate and the amount of times the performance dropped down between 32-45 FPS. It seems with x4/x4 there were more drops in performance than x16/x16.

They do go on to state that it is playable, but that is a testament that 4x might not be what you want. They also only test three games, and only one of the big ones, Metro. No Crysis or Crysis 2 with the texture pack. No SCII either which is considered a CPU intensive game. 4x is fine for what the OP wants to do but I wouldn't want to try doing any 16x/4x CF.