Help board and card question

[schnipps]

Guys u have the Asus P8P67-M PRO on order with 2 Asus ATI Radeon HD 6970 DirectCU II 2048MB, those gfx cards take 3 slots will it even fit with a sound card in pci?

 

[Surveyor]

Guys u have the Asus P8P67-M PRO on order with 2 Asus ATI Radeon HD 6970 DirectCU II 2048MB, those gfx cards take 3 slots will it even fit with a sound card in pci?

Two of those 6970's won't fit on that board without hanging well over the bottom edge and the second card would be in a x4 slot.

The board doesn't have any PCI slots anyway.

 

[schnipps]

what board would on the bundles allow me to fit those 2 cards and a sound card?

 

[Surveyor]

You're looking at bundles not just a motherboard?

I take it you're looking at Sandybridge so is that the 2500K or 2600K?

 

[schnipps]

..

 

[schnipps]

Im going to just buy the bits seperate i just want a big board that does the job and houses a sandybridge 2600k/ 2 asus 6970 CU cards and a sound card and isnt rammed together with no space what about this? http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BU-037-OP&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1906

 

[cmndr_andi]

Looks like a nice board, but again - no PCI slots. However, considering how much you are spending on the motherboard then investing in a new PCIE sound card (like the ASUS D2X) isn't a bad idea.

With the Direct Cu II coolers, these take up three slots each, if you say you want nice spacing then ideally you want at least one slot spacing between them - hence you need 8 slots (including the sound card). The MSI Big Bang Marshall can give you this (PCIE slots 1 and 5 for graphics), however, this still means that the sound card would have to be pretty close to one of the graphics cards.

 

[schnipps]

sorry the sound card i have is this one https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=SC-002-AS so its pci-express would that msi big bang be the only board that would house it all?

 

[cmndr_andi]

Ah, then yes you would be fine - though as there is eight PCIE slots and two triple slot coolers then the sound card will need to sit directly next to one of the graphics card inputs. However, the DX is pretty small - so i'm sure it won't impede the airflow much, personally I would install it in the bottom-most PCIE slot (which maximises the airflow to the top card - which usually runs hotter).

 

[Surveyor]

With the Big Bang Marshal you'll need to be careful what case you choose.

It's an XL-ATX board so is larger than standard ATX boards.

You'll need a case with room for 8 expansion slots instead of the normal 7.

 

[schnipps]

i have this http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-022-NX&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat= will it fit in there? If not them im goingot just get different gfx cards as they are proving too much of an issue

 

[cmndr_andi]

Unfortunately, it looks like that case only supports 7 PCI(E) bays, so can use a long 8 bay motherboard like the MSI big bang marshall.

Please bear in mind that if you want to use a standard 7 slot motherboard with two triple-slot DirectCU graphics cards and a single slot sound card - then no matter the arrangement all the cards will be right on top of each other (not ideal for cooling).

 

[Reaper 392]

have the cards already been sent to you, or can you change what cards you want to use?

if you can change, i would highly recommend getting some GTX570 twin frozr III's. they are only dual slot, perform pretty similarly to 6970's, and have an amazing cooler on them (so great overclocking is possible):

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-129-MS&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1010
570 vs 6970: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/292?vs=306

if you did go with those cards, then something like the Asrock Z68 extreme 4, or the MSI P67A-GD53 would be great, depending if you want the Z68 chipset or not