5870 crossfire

[Jonnygrunge]

Guys,
I have to say the layout of the GA-X58-Extreme sucks
With having any VGA (double slot) installed I have no access to the PCIe x1 slots on the mobo!.
I have my Xonar in the orange slot (PCIe_8) 'cause it's the only one available!
My question is do I sacrifice the Xonar?, as the bandwidth between the orange PCIe_8 slot and the 2nd PCIe_16 slot is shared!, my crossire setup the second card is only running at x8!
Or do I keep the Xonar installed? What is the real world difference between two cards at x16 or two at x16 and x8?
Any thoughts greatly appreciated!
Jonnygrunge.

 

[MoRT489]

Keep it, the real world difference between 16x and 8x is negligible (4-7%) unless using dual cards like 5970 or 6990. Look up Crossfire bandwidth scaling.

 

[lay-z-boy]

The layout doesn't suck, you just haven't thought about using either the 4x slot or 1x slot at the top of the board. That's where I have my USB 3 and xfi cards as do many others.

Only time you should be running at 16/8 on this board is when you have all 3 pcie 16 slots in use by gpu's or controller cards.
Having to drop to 16/8 for a card that barely uses a 1x slot isn't great.

 

[Jonnygrunge]

The layout doesn't suck, you just haven't thought about using either the 4x slot or 1x slot at the top of the board. That's where I have my USB 3 and xfi cards as do many others.

Only time you should be running at 16/8 on this board is when you have all 3 pcie 16 slots in use by gpu's or controller cards.
Having to drop to 16/8 for a card that barely uses a 1x slot isn't great.

I'm not convinced you have the GA-X58-Extreme! The top PCIe card slots are covered by the NB heatsink assembly the other one is buried under my 1st VGA card, which can only be used for a single slot VGA card! If you do have this mobo did you remove the NB heatsink assembly?

 

[lay-z-boy]

That extra heatpipe assembly is utterly useless. It's a gimmick. A gimmick that takes up 2 slots of space. Gigabyte seems to have realised it too as they didn't bother to include it after that generation.

Check my sig if you don't believe me. Though I'm not sure why you wouldn't.

 

[Jonnygrunge]

Cool thanks mate! So removing it I should not notice any difference in MCH temps? mines around 42oC with the heatsink on! Will remove it pronto if thats the case! Whats your overclock? Mines 4GHz (191 x 21)

 

[lay-z-boy]

Didn't make any difference to my overclock stability. 950 @ 4.2 12 hr linx stable with and without the heatpipe.

 

[Jonnygrunge]

Didn't make any difference to my overclock stability. 950 @ 4.2 12 hr linx stable with and without the heatpipe.

Great advice mate thanks, tip my hat to you!
Removed that ridiculous heatsink on the NB, made absolutely NO difference to MCH temps, a farce! Can't believe I used it for so long! System is still rock solid without it, tested OK. Both 5870's are now at x16, and performing well, since I moved the Xonar up to the x4 slot at the top! Very happy now! Scored 1973 in Unigine 2.5 benchmark! Thanks again! Room now for Tri-fire!
Jonnygrunge.