Claggy

Thanks for the suggestion and link, as I have spent nearly 12 months trying to find PCI GeForce 9500GT graphics cards.

Two purchased at a costly amount (but they are legacy legacy), but the $112 shipping cost on top hikes the price. At least they will be shipped direct to me without problems.

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It's good to be back amongst friends and colleagues

I googled the part no for the PCI 9500GT and came up with two suppliers in the UK:

http://www.pinnaclemicrogb.co.uk/newcart/search.php?g=VIDEO-498PCI-DLP

http://www.limitedgoods.com/itemView.php?ProdID=873029&source=FroogleUK&medium=free&campaign=FroogleUK_InStock

Claggy

Claggy

The Pinical Micro for the PCI 9500GT looks extremely interesting. I will contact them on the outer London phone line tomorrow.

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It's good to be back amongst friends and colleagues

I googled the part no for the PCI 9500GT and came up with two suppliers in the UK:

http://www.pinnaclemicrogb.co.uk/newcart/search.php?g=VIDEO-498PCI-DLP

http://www.limitedgoods.com/itemView.php?ProdID=873029&source=FroogleUK&medium=free&campaign=FroogleUK_InStock

Claggy

The problem I find with shopping for electronics in the US (Amazon, New Egg and eBay) is the purchased item has to be sent to a US address from the supplier. The US address can then send the item on to the UK OK.

Didn't know that. Take a look at these auctions, they are in or willing to ship to UK.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Jaton-Video-498PCI-DLP-1GB-DDR2-SDRAM-Nvidia-9500-GT-/230628595970?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item35b2891902
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Sparkle-NVIDIA-8400GS-512MB-PCI-HDMI-Low-Profile-Silent-/300543237696?pt=UK_Computing_Computer_Components_Graphics_Video_TV_Cards_TW&hash=item45f9c5de40
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/NEW-Nvidia-Geforce-8400GS-PCI-512MB-DDR2-LP-8400-GS-/310238708473?pt=UK_Computing_Computer_Components_Graphics_Video_TV_Cards_TW&hash=item483bab02f9

I have seen a x4 adapter as well, but, for crunching the GPU does a WU in its RAM. I am thinking the only real time the slow PCI bus may cause a problem (x1 or x 4 rather than x 8 or x 16 would be uploading the WU to the GPU and downloading the result.

I agree with the bandwidth issue, I just don't think you can physically plug an X16 card into an X1 slot, but the other way around will work.

The problem I find with shopping for electronics in the US (Amazon, New Egg and eBay) is the purchased item has to be sent to a US address from the supplier. The US address can then send the item on to the UK OK.

Also, yes all of those links for the 8400GS and 9500GT low riser cards should work directly in the PCI slot.

I seem to miss all the opportunities, due to cash drying up for such needs, and the PCI to PCI Express adapter route seemed an alternative.

I have seen a x4 adapter as well, but, for crunching the GPU does a WU in its RAM. I am thinking the only real time the slow PCI bus may cause a problem (x1 or x 4 rather than x 8 or x 16 would be uploading the WU to the GPU and downloading the result.

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It's good to be back amongst friends and colleagues

That adapter you linked to is a PCI to PCI-E X1 slot. Most graphics cards use a PCI-E X16 connector, X1 Cuda cards are almost as hard to find as PCI ones. Hopefully I'm wrong, but I don't think it will work.

I found these in the US, don't know if it will help you.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814139046
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814187042
http://www.compusa.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4104560&CatId=1603

I saw that Claggy, but, for me, it was a matter of having the money available and spare.

Last night I saw eBuyer has 9 in stock, and went to order 3 and they were out of stock.

I have always liked the 9500GT, in PCI (not PCI-E) form, and the pair I have, non-crossfired, in my dual P3 server are giving ~60K at PrimeGrid (when the server is running, and not as at present - cause as yet unknown).

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It's good to be back amongst friends and colleagues

I managed to order an PCI 8400 GS before they went out of Stock at ebuyer, nearly ordered two, Dabs still them, but at £15 more, and there are a few on Amazon,

Claggy

What I was aiming to do

I was hoping to find some old legacy PCI Nvidia graphics cards to carry out CUDA1.1 project crunching. This would, hopefully be using a Geforce 9500GT PCI 1GB low riser card.

Unfortunately all traces of probable sales at Amazon/eBay/etc both in the US and UK seem to have evaporated. Indeed, because of cash flow, I missed an opportunity to pick up 2 or 3 PCI only (not PCI Express) Geforce 8400GS, which are slower but also able to do CUDA 1.1 crunching.

Why?

I am running an old dual Prestonia Xeon server, under XP pro 32bit, which has an ATI HD3850 crunching Collatz, Milkyway, etc. But it also has 2 x PCI and 2 X PCI-X expansion slots I would like to drop a couple of 9500GTs in for PrimeGrid.

Research today

Doing Google investigations on PCI to PCI Express adapters/bridges I see that quite a range are available to allow PCI Express cards to be used in legacy PCI MoBos, etc. An example of the adapter can be seen here

So this is now my route of exploration to provide an upgrade path to a Geforce 9500GT 1GB low riser PCI Express card, which can be bought in the UK OK.

How I see it working

I see the purchase of a couple of these half height PCI to PCI Express adapters being plugged in to the 2 PCI expansion slots on the dual Xeon server. I would then plug a Geforce 9500GT low riser PCI-E card in to the top of each adapter, and then load the client, etc, and away we go.

Questions

My intention, originally, was to keep to Nvidia Geforce cards that were compatible with the PCI expansion bus (like a Geforce 9500GT). But, as the adapter allows PCI-E cards to be used, would it still be sensible to use, say, a GTX2xxx series card, or better, instead. Or should I stick with like-for-like?

If a more powerful Geforce card, than a 9500GT, with 32 shaders, is possible, what card should I be looking at?

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It's good to be back amongst friends and colleagues