PCI slots blocked?

[Russ88765]

Seeking to learn some info here.. Hypothetical situation here. Let's say you have a board with quad x16 slots such as a evga 4 way classified or a gigabyte ud9. Just as an example. If you are running a quad card setup that takes up all of those pci slots, is there any way to use a sound card? Are they entirely dependent on the available pci slots, or is there an alternate place on the board you can plug them in? Are you out of luck if you want upgraded sound as well as quad cards? Because some boards i've seen without the pci or pci x1 slots, so I wonder how you would get sound cards working to begin with.

 

[CdnAudiophile]

There are external usb soundcards out there but if you had the money to spend on that kind of setup a USB DAC or SPDIF DAC off the motherboard would be the high end solution. Both those boards have fairly decent onboard sound though. Most people just use the onboard with quad SLi.