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Can a second 5970 fit on my motherboard?

LauraJ

LauraJ

LauraJ

Associate
Joined
19 Sep 2010
Posts
28
Location
Oxfordshire
Hi guys,

I've just secretly bought a Corsair AX1200 1200W Power Supply & a Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5970 2048MB GDDR5 for my partner as a present so he can have Crossfire.

However after managing to have a look inside his case, I have noticed that the second PCI x16 slot on the motherboard (a Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5/P) is extremely close to the first card and I am now unsure if the second card will fit. The problem is I wont be able to send the item back if I open the packaging to check if does (likewise with the Power supply, which was only really bought for this).

Does anybody have this setup and can confirm that it will indeed fit? :confused:

I've taken a quick pic to show you guys. :)


imag0209a.jpg
 
SHOULD be fine:
No hotlinking!

The PCIE slot isnt in the middle of the card, its offset to the far side.
 
It will fit, but he's going to have a pretty major problem keeping the top card's temps down (Assuming the gap between the two cards is as minimal as in the pic above).

I have two 5970's set up as shown above and when gaming I have no choice but to use MSI Afterburner to manually control the fans + run a PCI fan at at least 50%.

For me it's been a clear choice between using stock fans and having a loud system, or spending more money and going water cooled.
 
yes it will definately fit in there,You can also wedge open the gap a little using rubber washers to between 3-5mm which will increase cooling significantly, don't go too OTT tho otherwise it can damage the solder on the motherboard, You do know 5970 quadfire don't scale to well and you'd have been better off and your purse better off buying a 5870 and going tri-fire instead. Just a thought
 
Thanks for the really fast response guys! it's much appreciated. I was getting worried that I would have to send everything back! :)

I should be getting them within the next several days, so fingers crossed that everything goes smoothly (it never does... :( ). A question though, would it be easier to put the top card out first, putting the bottom one in then putting the top one back?



kg648 said:
Thats one lucky partner!
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Well he did take me on a surprise trip to the Seychelles recently so it's the least I could do! :D




After having a quick look online, would a 120mm side fan help at all cooling the graphics cards?




After having a look just now, would a 120mm side fan help at all with cooling?



bigjimmyauk said:
You do know 5970 quadfire don't scale to well and you'd have been better off and your purse better off buying a 5870 and going tri-fire instead. Just a thought
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Thanks for that, I'll certainly keep in mind of the rubber washers suggestion! :)


subbytna said:
yeah what Jimmy said. Two 5970's aren't value for money when you look at 5870 tri-fire.
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I presume then that the 5970 counts as 2x5870 plus the one 5870 equaling the tri-fire? I would have thought that having "quad"fire would be better then the three in "tri"fire? :confused:

The problem is the 5970 is already listed as being despatched so it's coming here anyway.

How I miss the days of Pac-Man & Space Invaders... :p
 
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Scaling is often pretty terrible with quad fire, probably just because you're starting to do so much communication with 4 different gpu's.

Keep in mind its well worth playing around, you might get better performance with the 2nd 5970 in the 3rd pci-e slot, the 8x one, realistically its only a little slower, but as 5970's overclock above default speeds pretty easily with any amount of cooling, 2 with one in a worse slot, but both cards overclocked will likely run a lot faster and a lot cooler than both jammed into adjacent slots, high noise, poor cooling and stock speeds.

Another thing to keep in mind is the DSR, you have every chance to send it back and give your partner the PSU and an IOU for a 6970, the new gen AMD cards are out in only a few weeks now, launch the 12th, availability late Oct/early November.

Because scaling in quadfire is so poor, 2x faster cores on a 6970 might end up the same speed, or faster.


I'd also suggest that while a great PSU 1200W AX is insanely expensive, both cards only use 300W , you'll generally find xfire'd cards tend to use a little less juice(as systems find it hard to completely load all 4 cores), even overclocked I wouldn't bet on them using more than 750W, leaving, with the 1200W, around 450W free for basically 200W of hardware left over.

Its always a shame to give a present late(I was assuming it was a birthday present but noticed you didn't say what it was for) but a "new" anything is always a better present for a techhead than an old anything :p

So you have a few options there, keep it, try the 1st/3rd slot setup, or send it back, delay the present a month(if its just an out the blue present) and get him a nice new 6970 or pair of 6870's. I'd also personally consider a different better value PSU, obviously I don't know your partner so maybe they'd kill for that Corsair PSU.
 
buttkinz said:
I wouldn't worry, if my wife appeared wih a 5970, I certainly wounld not complain lol! He'll be well chuffed :)
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I hope so... or should I say he'd better be!! :mad:

:D


After having a quick look, his case supports a side fan which I think is a 120mm. Would getting one of them help to cool the cards down? Or would it really just be a waste of money? :confused:


Thanks for all that info drunkenmaster! :) The problem is computers now are not my forte, I like using them yes (especially when they are working!!). but it doesn't seem that long ago when I was using a 5¼in floppy and being wowed with the All-in-Wonder Pro.


If in the end we did decide to put it in the 3rd pci-e slot one, would there be a noticible change in FPS? (And he doesn't like to overclock his parts as he says it would void the warranty. I pressume something might have gone bang in the past... :D )


I didn't know anything about these new "6000" series cards. If I did get one of those instead (for example the 6970) wouldn't that cause the 5970 he already has not being able to be used? As I read somewhere that you need to have a card of the same series to crossfire etc.?



After having a quick look online it says that the 6970 is scheduled for December. :)
 
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twoblacklines said:
I suggest you buy him two or three 480 GTX's and get him to sell the card to recoup £250 or so :)
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Aren't they Nvidia cards?! :eek: Though he has said in the past that he does prefer Nvidia cards to ATI (he has had faulty ATI cards in the past unlike Nvidia. He last had 880 GTX OC in SLi), I didn't really want to buy him two or three graphics cards that cost around £400 each, and tell him to sell the card he only got a few months ago... :rolleyes: :D
 
I'm not sure what he has it on actually. It's a 30" monitor, if it's not at 2560x1440 it will be 1900x1200. :)
 
I don't think LauraJ is concerned about if 5970 quad fire is value for money or "the best GPU setup", I think she just wants to make sure it will work for her partner.

If your partner isn't planning to upgrade his graphics for a long time he will certainly enjoy 5970 quad fire especially on a 30" monitor.

Nice gift for him tbh!
 
At the moment he's playing that Metro game (2033?) and he can't crank the highest settings up on that (he's got a [email protected] & 6GB RAM) . As well as a few games he wants to get this year, he's eyeing up for the Crysis game coming out next year(?) I keep hearing that you needed the power of a nuclear power station to run the last one so... :P


Interesting game I can see :D

I presume that's been doctored a bit...

NathWraith said:
I don't think LauraJ is concerned about if 5970 quad fire is value for money or "the best GPU setup", I think she just wants to make sure it will work for her partner.

If your partner isn't planning to upgrade his graphics for a long time he will certainly enjoy 5970 quad fire especially on a 30" monitor.

Nice gift for him tbh!
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Thanks NathWraith! :)
 
isn't one 5970 good enough for any game out nowadays ?

having 2 would seem like a waste of time and money and as people have said...the heat coming from those 2 cards is going to be massive and could cause other things in the case to overheat.

just my 2p worth....:D

what case does he have ?
 
Well he says it isn't as he can't run some games at full settings! :D (and he uses high end graphics software too).

I'm not sure of which model it is, but it's a "Antec" one. I presume it's the latest one they have out. It has three front fans. ;)

Would a side fan help with cooling though?
 
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