Which slot should I install my Blackmagic Intensity Pro PCIe card?

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Level 1

11 points

Which slot should I install my Blackmagic Intensity Pro PCIe card?

Hi there,

I just purchased myself a Blackmagic Design Intensity Pro capture card. It's a x1 lane PCIe card and according to the manual, it should work in any PCIe slot on the Mac Pro. However, in the readme file, it states, "If using a Mac Pro, it is recommended to use PCIe slot 4 for Intensity capture cards."

What exactly does this mean? Does this mean it's recommended to use the x4 lane slot? Or the 4th slot in the Mac Pro? I'm a little confused.

Thanks for your time and I hope to hear from someone soon.

Regards,

Daniel

Mac Pro 3.2GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon "Nehalem" (Mid 2010), Mac OS X (10.6.4), 12GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM

Posted on Jan 7, 2011 8:15 AM

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Answer 1

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Jan 7, 2011 9:09 AM in response to IlMolto

It means install it in slot 4 which is the uppermost slot.

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Answer 2

IlMolto Author

Level 1

11 points

Jan 7, 2011 6:27 PM in response to Kappy

Hi Kappy,

Thanks for your reply. The uppermost slot is x4 / RAID. The next one down is just x4 and the one below that is x16. Is there a difference between the x4 and x4 / RAID?

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Answer 3

Jan 7, 2011 7:12 PM in response to IlMolto

The Apple RAID card plugs in there so that it can intercept the signals there, and take over the four main Hard Drive slots. The older design required you to insert the card and plug in some connectors in that slot.

If you do not already own the Mac Pro RAID Card, feel free to use that one for your card.

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Answer 4

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Jan 7, 2011 7:12 PM in response to IlMolto

i don't know. But there are only four slots and the topmost is slot 4.

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Answer 5

IlMolto Author

Level 1

11 points

Jan 7, 2011 7:22 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Thanks for your help guys. I've sent an email to Blackmagic Design about which slot to install the Intensity Pro. If I didn't read the readme file, I would have installed it in the x16 slot just above the video card. It probably wouldn't make a difference which slot it goes in, as that's what it states in the instruction manual. But reading the readme file has made me hold off until I get an answer from Blackmagic support.

Thanks again for your help. Much appreciated.

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Answer 6

The hatter

Level 9

60,990 points

Jan 8, 2011 3:52 AM in response to IlMolto

Depends when it was written, and for which Mac Pro.

Does it support 16x slots? maybe. But slots 3&4 are 4x and #4 refers to the top most just under the hard drives.

Some cards use to run best in 8x slot which was slot #4 on early Mac Pro but which was also PCIe 1.1.

Mac Pro 2008 and later, doesn't matter.

Apple had trouble with their own Fibre Channel card not working correctly in 2008, and not working to full bandwidth.

I passed answering before because you just need to look at what your PCIe slots provide.

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