Downgrade X58 board from Rampage II Extreme to P6T Deluxe

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My Rampage 2 has the top 2 pci-e 16x slots very close together, so my top 5870 runs 10 degrees hotter than the bottom 5870. Although I use MSI Afterburner to prevent overheating/throttling and its working out so far. This slot spacing while annoying is done to allow a 3rd gpu to fit in the bottom pci-16x slot to allow tri sli or crossfire, which is a bit pointless as you need a case with 8 pci slots since the last pci-e slot is on the edge of the motherboard.

Anyway I have noticed that the p6t has extra spacing between the top 2 16x slots, so this should definitely run sli/crossfire cooler. Although the 2nd card blocks the 3rd pci-e 16x slot on the p6t. However seeing as I will probably only ever runs 2 gpu's (maybe Fermi or 5970's in future when I get a bigger/more screens), and the fact I'd need a new case anyway, this shouldn't matter. Plus the P6T allows full length sound cards fit in the top pce-1 slot, unlike the Rampage which is limited to the SupremeFX unless you bend the heatsink pins back.

Anyway, long story short - is it worth selling my rampage and looking at a p6t deluxe ? Any disadvantages to the p6t compared to the rampage ?
 
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When researching this all the evidence I could find pointed towards the boards overclocking identically and generally behaving the same, concluding that buying the cheaper one made more sense. However there is a fairly rabid rampage fanbase which seems to disagree.

I'd say you'll be fine, more of a step sideways than downwards. It also gives you the option of changing manufacturer to one with a better rma record if you so choose.
 
I'm not. But I would be with hotter running cards like 5970's or possibly the upcoming Fermi's. So I'm looking at all my options.
 
Agreed, a step sideways rather than down. I have tested a dual SLI configuration and also find that the second graphics card does occupy the PCI slot for which I use a soundcard.

My only assumption with the P6T is if you do use a multi GPU setup, will you get 2x 16 lanes bandwidth per card?
 
Flanno said:
My Rampage 2 has the top 2 pci-e 16x slots very close together, so my top 5870 runs 10 degrees hotter than the bottom 5870. Although I use MSI Afterburner to prevent overheating/throttling and its working out so far. This slot spacing while annoying is done to allow a 3rd gpu to fit in the bottom pci-16x slot to allow tri sli or crossfire, which is a bit pointless as you need a case with 8 pci slots since the last pci-e slot is on the edge of the motherboard.

Anyway I have noticed that the p6t has extra spacing between the top 2 16x slots, so this should definitely run sli/crossfire cooler. Although the 2nd card blocks the 3rd pci-e 16x slot on the p6t. However seeing as I will probably only ever runs 2 gpu's (maybe Fermi or 5970's in future when I get a bigger/more screens), and the fact I'd need a new case anyway, this shouldn't matter. Plus the P6T allows full length sound cards fit in the top pce-1 slot, unlike the Rampage which is limited to the SupremeFX unless you bend the heatsink pins back.

Anyway, long story short - is it worth selling my rampage and looking at a p6t deluxe ? Any disadvantages to the p6t compared to the rampage ?
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Whichever board you use will always give you a hotter GPU1 Temp than GPU2 although, the difference will be minimal on bigger tower case.

JonJ678 said:
When researching this all the evidence I could find pointed towards the boards overclocking identically and generally behaving the same, concluding that buying the cheaper one made more sense. However there is a fairly rabid rampage fanbase which seems to disagree.

I'd say you'll be fine, more of a step sideways than downwards. It also gives you the option of changing manufacturer to one with a better rma record if you so choose.
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Sideways, yes but not the option of changing manufacturers. Both boards are made by asus and that means rma records doesn't change.:D
 
The option being to choose a different x58 board to the P6T if he's changing anyway, and so avoid Asus. Was that not clear?
 
I just got the P6T with 2x 5770, I have to admit whilst I was installing it all I was worried the graphcis cards would touch but they didnt..

been very happy with it - tbh the deluxe version isnt really worth the extra money from what I could see
 
The pcie slot spacing on the p6t deluxe series is pretty good, im considering adding a second gtx 280 in mine.
 
d3m0n_edge said:
Agreed, a step sideways rather than down. I have tested a dual SLI configuration and also find that the second graphics card does occupy the PCI slot for which I use a soundcard.

My only assumption with the P6T is if you do use a multi GPU setup, will you get 2x 16 lanes bandwidth per card?
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The 1st 2 lanes on the rampage are 16x. The last one is 1x if running a card with less than 8x bandwidth. So right now I run 2x5870's at 16x, and my Asus Essence STX at 1x in the 3rd pci-e 16x slot.

If I swapped the sound card and 2nd 5870, that would make a bit of space for cooling but the crossfire bridge isn't long enough to join the 2 cards. More importantly the 2nd 5870 would only run at 4x giving about a 20% reduction in speed. The configs on the rampage are 16x16x1x, where third slot is populated with a card less then 8x. Or 16x8x8x, for Tri sli or Tri fire, but because the 3rd slot is on the edge of the board you need a case with 8 pci slots to accomodate the dual slot cooler of the 3rd gpu. All other combinations force the 3rd pci slot to 4x (the 2nd 5870 in this situation), because the card in the 2nd slot (sound card) isn't 8x or higher. Finally unlike the P6T, using the top pci-e 1x slot (above the 1st 5870) for a full length sound card won't work unless you break pins of the chipset heatsink. The P6T has none of these issues and you can populate the board with 2 graphics cards in the 1st 2 16x slots with plenty of space, and you can use the top pci-e 1x slot for a full length sound card. You can't run tri-sli or tri-fire though, which is why I'm now not considering the p6t anymore.

JonJ678 said:
The option being to choose a different x58 board to the P6T if he's changing anyway, and so avoid Asus. Was that not clear?
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Avoiding Asus is not the issue for me. According to an Asus rep who posts on these forums a 5 day turnaround time has now been setup between Asus and OcUK. And I've never had an Asus board snuff it on me yet. And even if I did avoid Asus - nearly ALL the X58's are either tri-sli with crap spacing, and the only decent one that's designed for just ordinary sli with decent spacing is the P6T. Of course I did consider the gigabyte ud5, but was put off with plenty of reports of cold boot issues. And I was aware of the memory issues Rampages had which is why I bought memory G.skill specifically tested on my board.

I'm looking at the Asus supercomputer now, as it gives decent spacing like the P6T, and can run 2 or 3 graphics cards plus a sound card, and all gpu's will run in 16x mode, though that's no real benefit in gaming to be honest as 8x is good enough for 2nd card onwards.
 
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This is the spacing on my R2E (ignore the cabling I was working on my system at the time :P)

CIMG8281.jpg


Have you considered running your second card on the bottom slot? It dropped the temps for both cards quite a bit, but involves a good deal of faffing about, also gotta consider the constraint of the x8 lane.
 
Thanks for the pic mate.

In relation to using bottom slot, see my post above yours.

1. Your case needs to have 8 pci slots. This is due to asus putting in a 1x slot for the SupremeFX X-Fi at the very top forcing all the other pci-e slots 2 spaces down. With the result the 3rd 16x pci-e slot is on the edge of the motherboard, so a dual slot cooler will need an additional pci slot to fit. Not to mention a dual slot cooler will knock out some of the usb and fan connectors which are also along the edge.

2. Running a video card in the third slot will force the card to run in 4x mode. I tried it with the board out of the case. This is because you need to run a card in the 2nd slot at 8x or higher for the lanes to reconfigure correctly and the only manually configurable options in the bios are 16x16x1x and 16x8x8x. Just the way the lanes are setup. There is also the quesion of needing a longer crossfire bridge.

I will stick with running 2 5870's up close for now, until I can afford an Asus Supercomputer board which has none of these issues.
 
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Yeah, I'm aware of the dual slot problem. I got creative and took off the backplate of my second card and found other means to secure it. The cooler also has a reasonable height clearance so i can still get connectors into the headers.

And I set the bios to 16x8x8x so one is running with 16 lanes and one at 8. I did kinda hint at this in my last post, it doesn't really have any ill effects now, but who knows with 4GPUs or newer cards eh?

Its doable, not great but it doesn't involve changing the mobo.
 
danb21t said:
Completely off topic, whenever I put the two crossfire bridges on my cards I seem to get scambled screen on POST. But its completely fine with just one bridge, do I need both on there?
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I don't think you do. There might be something else wrong?
 
Some people over on Xtremesystems have found with the 58xx series you get better synthetic benches with 2 bridges, and have some have said at high overclocks 2 bridges increase stability - but ati's official stance is you only need 1 when running 2 cards. At least according to Guru3d.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-5870-crossfirex-test-review/3

"Though the photo shows two CrossfireX bridges only one CF strap is actually sufficient and recommended to retain better the airflow of the board. According to ATI there’s really no need for a second one unless you use 3- or 4-way CF"

I run with only 1 bridge and zero issues.

Maybe one of your bridges is damaged somehow ?

I'd try running 1 bridge, and try both positions. Then try the other bridge in both positions.
That will rule out either the bridge connector as the cultrprit or a faulty connector on one of the cards.
 
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Flanno said:
Some people over on Xtremesystems have found with the 58xx series you get better synthetic benches with 2 bridges, and have some have said at high overclocks 2 bridges increase stability - but ati's official stance is you only need 1 when running 2 cards. At least according to Guru3d.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-5870-crossfirex-test-review/3

"Though the photo shows two CrossfireX bridges only one CF strap is actually sufficient and recommended to retain better the airflow of the board. According to ATI there’s really no need for a second one unless you use 3- or 4-way CF"

I run with only 1 bridge and zero issues.

Maybe one of your bridges is damaged somehow ?

I'd try running 1 bridge, and try both positions. Then try the other bridge in both positions.
That will rule out either the bridge connector as the cultrprit or a faulty connector on one of the cards.
Click to expand...

Indeed I will now actually, again sorry OP for the slight thread hijack
 
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