Sintech PCI-E Express X1 to Dual PCI Riser Extender Card with Low Profile Bracket

First of all, i am not a native speaker, so forgive me my imperfect english.This little piece of technic is one of my best deal ever. To describe my problem which i have solved with this device:I own and work for more than 10 years with 3X Creamware (today the company name is Sonic Core) professionell DSP sound Cards with 15 sharc processors on every card. I love the sound of the cards and i have learn to work with them. So, there is no reason atm to buy something new stuff which don't sound better and just have some new stuff which at least me don't need. I additional buyed before about 10 years a PCI to PCI extender from Magma, and host the three cards in this magma backplane. So, if i work on music i switch the Magma device on and have a nice and powerful music studio, and if i only do my ususal stuff with the pc i did not switch it on. It's perfect, only one pc for both jobs, means only care on one pc and besides lower costs.But, 32 bit PCI slots becoming very rare on new powerful machines e.g. a motherboard for a 6 core Intel CPU.So, what i tried out with this device here is to use it to translate the PCIe slot on the motherboard to PCI 32 bit for the magma host card. I never have really hoped that this will work on such a time critical stuff like professional DSP sound cards, but, it works perfect under Win7 64bit. Even better, i could installed the card directly into the Magama expansion, make all connections in the Magma Expansion, and use an USB 3.0 extender cable to connect the Magma if i am on Music, and to reconnect it if i am not on Music making. Don't misunderstand, i did not put the Creamware Cards into the PCI Slots from the riser Card, i just use the riser card to translate PCIe to PCI 32bit, and installed the Magma host card into the Riser Card. From this host card the usual Magma cable is connected to the Magma extender card, and in the Magma backplane are the three DSP sound cards installed (as it was right from the beginning). Sounds odd ? Yes, but again, i have tested it under very hard and time critically situations, and once more, it works.So, everybody who share the same problem, this should be a working and good value solution to bring your 32bit Magma PCI hosted DSP Sound Cards into the "PCIe" only Motherboard area.

Bought this to attempt to use an old Soundblaster XFI Titanium Card on my PC. After updating drivers, bios, trying numerous "fixes" I cannot get the pc to recognize anything plugged into it. Not to mention you have to make a custom SATA power cable for this POS. Waste of money and tremendous waste of time.

N.B.: This review is for the PCIe-to-x2_PCI extender card pictured in the attached photo. Amazon, for whatever reason, shows an image of a different extender (a PCI-to-PCI one).So far this worked with all the legacy PCI cards that I threw at it - in pairs! Audio, FireWire, Network...It uses the Pericom PI7C9X111SL reversible PCIe-to-PCI bridge, which seems to be compatible with all sorts of motherboard chipsets, and supported natively by Linux and Windows OSes (did not test in a Mac - sorry).Seems to be fully compliant PCI bus specs up to v3.0 and PCIe up to v1.1Both PCI devices get independent IRQ lines, so - no conflicts or other interferences between them.The one star that I am taking back is for the type and placement of the connectors on the PCI base:* The SATA power connector could have been angled at 90-degrees, thus allowing a normal SATA power connector to fit under a full-length PCI card.* The (USB3-style) PCIe-signal connector could have been oriented differently - either up from the board, or along its length - so that the signal cable does not stick out so much to one side.Otherwise - a great board!

The important thing is that the build quality is good, and it worked for my Windows 10 system as advertised.I wanted to continue using an older M-Audio Delta 1010 audio interface with a new Ausus ROG Crosshair VIII Hero motherboard that doesn't have an older PCI slot on board. I picked up one of these riser kits, stuck it in the 1x PCIE slot on the motherboard, ran the cables, mounted it and my PCI card in a cheap electronics project enclosure that I happened to have laying around, popped out some holes for the cables to run with a dremel, and it works like charm.It does come with the cable that runs from the PCIe slot to the riser card. It also comes with screws and offsets if your PC case happens to have room to mount it in there. There are different options for mounting holes in the riser PCB, and it also ships with metal rails and yet more mounting options around the edges that can be removed if necessary.My motherboard is ATX size, and the ATX case I stuck it in only has 7 card/slot spaces, so this would not fit inside my case. If you happen to have extended ATX or something bigger, or a smaller motherboard in an ATX case, it might just mount right in for you.An alternate position in the chassis wasn't an option for me without seriously modding the computer case or spending extra time and money making pig tail cables since I needed to get a massive 25pin cable header in there somehow. No problem, rather than investing in extra ribbon cables, brackets, etc...I just extended an SATA power cable out of the computer case along with the included riser USB style cable.If you need to go external with it, be sure to extend an SATA power connection to the riser board somehow. If covering your PCI card(s) is important to you, pick up a proper sized pencil box or something that's rated to handle the temperatures your card(s) might emit and mount it in with your card(s), dremel out the holes/slots you need to get cables in. It wasn't hard for me at all.