PCIe-x4 slot, cramped. Worth using?

[Lancer]

Okay, here's what I've got. There's a PCI-E x4 slot on my motherboard that I'd love to put to work. Most likely I'd use it for a sound card or a "killer" network card. There's a problem though, my motherboard wasn't exactly built with gaming in mind so there's not a lot of clearance next to my video card. There's enough that I can fit a card into the x4 slot, but it'd be close to my video card.

So, I can get a card to fit in there, but would I be running the risk of possibly overheating/frying/etc. whatever I place in that x4 slot?

Also, if I can use that slot safely, has anyone used or been using a Killer network card and are they worth it? I'm looking into gaming NIC's as I'm on a piece-of-s*** DSL connection at home, and I'm going off to college after the summer so I'd like to stabilize my ping as much as I can. Its going to come down to that or a soundcard as I'm using the mobo's integrated SoundMAX sound right now, which is fine but not great. I'm thinking of getting a Steelseries USB soundcard if I get the killer card.

My build:
Dell Precision 670 workstation (salvaged it from scrap, fixed. Now gaming fine :) )
Windows 7 Ultimate 32bit
2 Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors 3.2GHz
XFX Nvidia GTS 250 1Gb video card
2Gb DDR2 RAM ECC Registered (only thing the mobo takes)
650 Watt Power Supply

[General Jameson]

My suggestion don't get a NIC you will see very little diffrence. Unless audio is the most important thing to you I would not invest in sound.

I would be looking at Windows 7 64-bit another 2gb of ram and a videocard upgrade in the near future. This would net you better performance than a NIC or sound card.

Edit: If you do go with something in the slot below the GPU it should be fine temp wise. The GTS 250 should be a dual slot cooler venting out the back of the case the fan is most likley close to the front card that will be extending beyond the length of whatever is installed below it. If that makes sense I would find a pic of what I mean but I have no time. Just watch temps a little closer if you do you.

[Fatimmortal]

Gaming NICs? Wait what?

If you're talking about this (http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/777)...

Apparently, what it does is to take the stress off your main CPU and gives your rig a dedicated network support.

It's pointless since you already have a powerful CPU for your rig and you won't notice any difference unless your college limits every connection to its internet with a download/upload speed of 512kilobits/sec and you're torrenting and gaming at the same time.

But I don't think you would be downloading torrents via a college network which will monitor your usage. Not sure about this but I remember that a certain college/university had a number of its students sued by a music company for downloading music through P2P software for 2k on each individual song they have downloaded through the network.

[Lancer]

Right, so basically its not worth <$100 to get one of those network cards. I'll prolly get a sound card to use there then, since apparently it won't be an issue to use that slot. And yes, my GPU (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150439) does exhaust out the back of the case.

Cool thanks guys. Extra RAM is high on my priority list, but I'm not intending to make this thing completely top of the line anyway. So much of it is Dell proprietary that I just want it as a decent gaming rig until I build a better one with off the shelf parts down the road.

[kdawgmaster]

this rly all depends. some people with a lower mobo with a connection of 10/100 and get a network card with a connection of 10/100/1000 will get a performance boost in there pings. but with most mobo's now a days having 10/100/1000 in then its not as worth it anymore. Given that it still does take stress off the CPU u might notice a FPS and a pings boost at the same time its to hard to say.

[Fatimmortal]

this rly all depends. some people with a lower mobo with a connection of 10/100 and get a network card with a connection of 10/100/1000 will get a performance boost in there pings. but with most mobo's now a days having 10/100/1000 in then its not as worth it anymore. Given that it still does take stress off the CPU u might notice a FPS and a pings boost at the same time its to hard to say.

Definition of PING:

Ping is a computer network administration utility used to test whether a particular host is reachable across an Internet Protocol (IP) network and to measure the round-trip time for packets sent from the local host to a destination computer, including the local host's own interfaces.

Overall quality of the NIC will affect the ping, but bandwidth of the connection doesn't. Hence, he will not experience better ping.

FPS wise, it all depends on how much of a CPU-dependent game he's playing. But since he's already got a total of four powerful physical cores(correct me if I'm wrong), he wouldn't notice any difference in FPS.

[kdawgmaster]

Definition of PING:



Overall quality of the NIC will affect the ping, but bandwidth of the connection doesn't. Hence, he will not experience better ping.

FPS wise, it all depends on how much of a CPU-dependent game he's playing. But since he's already got a total of four powerful physical cores(correct me if I'm wrong), he wouldn't notice any difference in FPS.

like i had said it depends. if u have a mobo that only supports 10/100 on its main board network and he was to get this with a 10/100/1000 support he would notice less lag, FPS wise if u have anything better then a single core ur looking at at best 3-5 FPS.

[NJuice]

Before you go buy anything, go to the dslreports boards and ask around for other users of your ISP what their in-game latencies are like, and what region they are in.
The biggest factors that affect your latency are more likely not your hardware, but how far you are from your ISP's relays/nodes, how good they are, the quality of your modem, cables, etc, how saturated your area is, etc.