Question 1

I have a gigaybyte motherboard with the following

PCI Express 3.0 x16
1 (x16)
1 (x8)
1 (x4)
PCI Express x16
1 (x4)
PCI Express x1
1 x PCI Express x1
PCI Slots
2 x PCI Slots

I have one graphics card in x16. Which slot should I put this into since it technically shares bandwidth between the cards?

Accepted Answer

Could you possibly specify the model number of your motherboard or provide a link? A little more info on your graphics card could be helpful too - note here that the card brand is just as important as the model number and GPU brand (AMD or NVIDIA), as the fan and heatsink setups can vary widely by the manufacturer (I'm thinking MSI, EVGA, Sapphire, Gigabyte, etc.).

This will depend on several factors, chiefly the relative locations of your slots, the size of your video card's fan and heatsink (as some beasts can be fat enough that you won't be able to use the slot below it), and the position of the fan's intake and exhaust. The majority of video cards have fans directly on the face, so if that's the case you'd want to avoid using the slot right below it anyway, or you could run into heat problems if it restricts air flow.

Also, as you mentioned, using the second PCIe x16 slot could cripple your video card, which is exactly what you DON'T want to do. Generally I'd suggest that the PCIe x1 slot is good enough for this, as it is still unbelievably fast (this is where I put mine).

If, however, the PCIe x1 slot is in a bad spot that could create heat issues, then you'll want to look into your video card model and determine if it actually NEEDS all that bandwidth in the first place. Many are listed as PCIe 3.0 x16 because they support it, but when it comes down to it, the bandwidth is way overboard and most video cards aren't capable of maxing it out yet, so in many cases you don't see any performance drop until you really restrict it hard. If 3.0 x8 still has plenty of bandwidth, just stick it as far away from the video card as you can to give it breathing room. Hope this helps!

Question 2

Anyone out there running it on an Asus Sabertooth 990FX R2.0? This is an AMD am3+ board.

Accepted Answer

no but I am running it on an asus crosshair 5 formula amd platform,with no issues what so ever.Bios recognized it installed with no issue.used acronis software to move windows,again smooth as silk

Question 3

Can I use this HyperX Predator Half-Height, Half-Length (HH-HL) 480GB PCI-Express 2.0 x4 Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) SHPM2280P2H/480G (with HHHL Adapter) with my motherboard Asus Rampage III Extreme? My RevoDrive350 just died so I need to replace it with another PCI-E drive.

Accepted Answer

Yes, you can.  I have the Asus Rampage 3 Formula motherboard, but the chipset used in your board and mine is the same one (X58 Express).  Therefore, the PCI Express lanes are controlled the same way in both of our boards.  I assume you have kept your BIOS up to date.  You should be fine using this drive in a  (x4) PCI Express slot like I am now doing.  When you first install it, you will notice the BIOS sometimes will detect the drive and other times it won't, which can be remedied with a restart each time.  I was able to completely solve this with the Kingston firmware update recommended for this drive (download from their website).  I used this auto-flash utility by booting from another drive and just running it on the other drive; the Predator was recognized just fine and the firmware flashed without any problem.  Since then, BIOS has always recognized the Predator and booting from it becomes just like for any SATA drive.  One thing to consider ... the speed of the drive seems to be about the same as a fast SATA SSD.  I'm thinking, maybe installing it in a PCI Express 3.0 motherboard at a later date would make it even faster ...?  Good luck, you should be fine with the Predator.  I like it ...

Question 4

hello, can hyper x  work with Intel® Desktop Board D945GCNL?
thanks

Accepted Answer

As long as you have a open pcie x4 or above slot open to use, yes it will work.

Question 5

can this drive be run as a boot drive on my AS Rock 990FX - sb950 chipset set up? I have an open pci e 2.o x16 slot open.

Accepted Answer

Yes! I'm running it on ASRock 990FX Extreme6 in an x16 slot.

Question 6

Will this SSD work on X79 chipsets? Is it compatible? Thanks in advance.

Accepted Answer

As long as your motherboard has an unused PCI-e slot available, it will work. Older chipsets without 2.0 standards will suffer a performance loss on the card due to a  buss speed bottleneck, but this drive would still significantly boost performance. PCI-e version specs will be in your users manual.

Question 7

Can i mount a different ssd on the riser card or should i look for something else?

Accepted Answer

This product includes a M.2 (next gen form factor) Kingston 480GB SSD. You may be able to mount a different M.2 SSD, but there are other M.2 PCIe SSD adapters available. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=12K-017B-00001

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