Dell PowerEdge R520 Owner's Manual

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Expansion-Card Installation Guidelines

Your system supports:

PCI Express Generation 2 and Generation 3 expansion cards.

Different expansion-card risers for single- and dual-processor configurations. The following table provides the riser configurations for single- and dual-processor systems:

Table 1. Riser Configuration for Single- and Dual-Processor Systems
Number of Processors	Expansion Card Slots
Number of Processors	Riser 1	Riser 2
One	PCIE_G2_X4 iDRAC Ports Card	PCIE_G3_X8 PCIE_G3_X4 PCIE_G3_X4
One	PCIE_G2_X4 iDRAC Ports Card	PCIE_G3_X8 PCIE_G3_X4 PCIE_G3_X4
Two	PCIE_G3_X16 iDRAC Ports Card	PCIE_G3_X8 PCIE_G3_X8 PCIE_G3_X8
Two	PCIE_G3_X16 iDRAC Ports Card	PCIE_G3_X8 PCIE_G3_X8 PCIE_G3_X8

NOTE: The expansion-card risers listed in the above table cannot be interchanged between single- and dual- processor systems.

Only a three-fourth length GPU card is supported for the PCIe expansion card slot (slot 2) on riser 2.

Use the following table as a guide for installing expansion cards to ensure proper cooling and mechanical fit. The expansion cards with the highest priority must be installed first using the slot priority indicated. All other expansion cards must be installed in card priority and slot priority order.

Table 2. Expansion-Card Installation Priority for Riser 2
Card Priority	Card Type	Slot Priority	Max Allowed
1	External RAID	4, 3, 2	1
2	CNAs	4, 3, 2	3
3	10 Gb NICs	4, 3, 2	3
4	FC8 HBA	4, 3, 2	3
5	FC4 HBA	4, 3, 2	3
6	1 Gb NICs	4, 3, 2	3
7	Non-RAID	4, 3, 2	3
8	FC16 HBA	4, 3, 2	3