I've dealt with a similar predicament. I think you hit the nail right on the head with the Quadro4 FX 9xx. That's the strongest single-slot Quadro card that comes to mind, although given the photos I'm seeing I'm doubtful there'd be any clearance for actual airflow into the card's fan if you needed to occupy the immediately adjacent PCI slot. I'm running a Quadro2 Pro with the adjacent PCI slot occupied, but anything with a thicker cooling system than that could become a real issue. I feel like a GeForce FX 5500 is probably the highest-end nVidia card I've seen using that same slim cooling solution where you can get away with installing another card right next to it.

Myself, I used to run a Quadro FX 3000 (i.e. GeForce FX 5900) in my 1.4GHz Tualatin rig - and it did really well but it's a dual-slot card. I think if it were me I'd do the USB networking option but it all comes down to which one is more important to you - the stronger GPU or the PCI ethernet card.

I have three dual Tualatin systems (though I am consider sacrificing one for a slot A 1 ghz build), and for those systems with AGP slots, I am using a Quadro FX 3000 and a ti4400. The system without AGP uses an FX600. I’m using usb 2.0, scsi ultra320’ and gigabit Ethernet. I’m wondering why you are short a PCI slot...

feipoa wrote:

I have three dual Tualatin systems (though I am consider sacrificing one for a slot A 1 ghz build), and for those systems with AGP slots, I am using a Quadro FX 3000 and a ti4400. The system without AGP uses an FX600. I’m using usb 2.0, scsi ultra320’ and gigabit Ethernet. I’m wondering why you are short a PCI slot...

Because I'm crazy and want the front USB 3.0 ports connected to a 3.0 controller. I found a pci-e 1x USB 3.0 card with Win2k drivers that works through a particular pci-e to PCI adapter.

The mb is a Tyan S2507T which has an AGP 4x slot, and 5 PCI slots.

I want:

Best video card
Sound card
USB 2.0 card
USB 3.0 card
Ethernet card (lowest priority since it wouldn't be used much and can be addressed with a USB Ethernet adapter when necessary).

I think @AngieAndretti is probably on the same thought as me... Just stick with what I have and forego the Ethernet card.

Oh, its a VIA Apollo Pro 133T board... I much prefer the Apollo Pro 266T and ServerWorks HE-SL.

Isn't USB 3.0 supposed to be backward compatibile with 2.0? I'd hate to hate to have a USB-to-Ethernet dongle in the back, especially for moving cases in and out of the closet. I'd ditch the USB 2.0 or 3.0 card if there isn't space. You could also swap motherboards. Those based on the HE-SL usually have 6 PCI slots and multiple PCI buses.

You have listed 4 PCI cards. AGP card that consumes a PCI slot, should leave you with 4 PCI slots. I'm confused.

feipoa wrote:

Oh, its a VIA Apollo Pro 133T board... I much prefer the Apollo Pro 266T and ServerWorks HE-SL.

Isn't USB 3.0 supposed to be backward compatibile with 2.0? I'd hate to hate to have a USB-to-Ethernet dongle in the back, especially for moving cases in and out of the closet. I'd ditch the USB 2.0 or 3.0 card if there isn't space. You could also swap motherboards. Those based on the HE-SL usually have 6 PCI slots and multiple PCI buses.

You have listed 4 PCI cards. AGP card that consumes a PCI slot, should leave you with 4 PCI slots. I'm confused.

ah you're right, also have a PCI SATA card for the SSD

I'm not too worried about plugging things in as I have a little IKEA desk setup just for this rig (picked up a new Acer 1920 x 1200 75Hz display for it).

What do you like about the 266T motherboards? I haven't studied too much other than reading about boards that support Tualatin chips, more than 512mb RAM, AGP, and no ISA slots (don't have any use for them and would rather have all PCI).

• The 266T has a 266 MB/s "v-link bus" between the north and south bridge chipsets, whereas the 133T has 133 MB/s.
  Supports up to 4 GB ECC registered DDR memory (or some boards still have the conventional SDR)
  AGP 4x
  Native Tualatin CPU support
  Some boards have onboard Promise IDE RAID
  But most of all, I found it substantially more stable than the Apollo Pro 133T. I used both as main computers for multiple years.

ServerWorks HE-SL boards tend to be limited to AGP Pro 2x slots. They have the benefit of dual channel PC133 SDR, which is faster than DDR on these systems. HE-SL also comes with an ISA slot option, but most don't have it. Some HE-SL boards have native Tualatin support, some need the Korean adapter. HE-SL supports multiple PCI buses as well as PCI-X.