Help Picking a MB with Max Space between GPU's

shankly1985

shankly1985

shankly1985

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Hello guys I want to change my motherboard from Asrock z68 Extreme4 Gen3
To another which will give my a very good space between the two GPU's

The GPU's I have right now are two slot Msi R9 290 Gaming Edition.

Here a sketch of the layout
https://onedrive.live.com/redir?res...uthkey=!AOzombvzxUNt-fs&v=3&ithint=photo,.jpg

As you can see the space between the two is about one PCI Lane is they a 1155 MB out there with better spacing? I will also need one free slot for PCI 1x for my Sound card.

Am I asking to much is this the Max space you can get from Crossfire/SLI?

Thanks
 
stulid said:
One slot gap is about standard.

Are your cards overheating or something?


The Z77-UP7 (around £400 new of the top of my head) may allow you to use the orange slots furthest apart from each other, but what a waste of money.
Click to expand...

Not over heating, just top card is about 10-15c hotter than bottom. Kinder looking at option to bring the temps closer together.

I feel the bottom card is just giving the top card all its hot air.
 
I even changed them around to make sure one card's cooler wasn't damaged. But same results
I bought this new Corsair Carbide 540 great case and very happy with it. But I thinking it wasn't a good choice with Multi GPU's

My last case kept my two old cards 7950's at a much closer temp.

This what I would like to aim for again. I do understand the difference between a 7950 and 290 is all new ball game. But I still trying to sort of bring that 15c difference to much closer.
https://onedrive.live.com/redir?res...uthkey=!AJ1E0o5XrEGVK4A&v=3&ithint=photo,.png
 
stulid said:
Think you should just live with it (im sure you are not alone with top cards being hotter in a multi-gfx setup).

Im actually trying to read the UP7 specs as its a complicated beast and I think it also has about a one slot gap between the two slots you would use in a 2-way setup.


http://www.gigabyte.com/fileupload/product/2/4334/6676_big.jpg

The 1st and 3rd orange slots are what are used in 2way setups. The black one is for a single card on its own as its connected directly to the CPU.
Click to expand...

Yeah think you correct it is me being more picky that anything really. But its not worth £400 quid haa
Was hoping more like £100 lol
 
That does look very good spacing. Will see if I can find any build logs maybe with someone running two slot GPU's.

Thanks for your Help so far, done much more than I have happened to find this past week. lol burning my head out.
 
stulid said:
Nor me, but I could ask someone who may know the answer but he's in USA so may take a while to reply.
Click to expand...

Yeah that would be great. Interested if the space between two GPU is more than one Lane and a we bit.

Like on mine its about One lane and abit I maybe looking at two full lane would you say?
If you get me.

Thanks
 
Gutted looking at that board it will seem I won't be able to use my Asus xonar d2x sound card.
The length of the card won't fit in the pci-e1x slot.

So if I was to maybe use it in the middle of the two cards I might just be back square one? Or will it lower the pci speed down lol

If speed isn't changed with having it in pci 16X slot then I sure it will still be better for the GPUs as they will still be far apart.
 
Ok I have chosen not to buy that MB, instead I think I might upgrade to Haswell in couple months and take a pick from selection of boards that way.

In the mean time I going to try see what the bottom port on my Asrock plus top slot performs like.
This will run 16x - 4x I think where now I run 8x - 8x think this will effect performance much?
Or will it be 8x - 4x
Expansion slots Two 16x PCI-E 3.0 slots, one 16x PCI-E 2.0 slot (one 16x, two 8x or two 8x and one 4x), two PCI, two 2x PCI-E
 
setter said:
10-15c is pretty normal with sli/xfire. Board spacing helps a wee bit, but get a fan beind the cards such as an antec spotcool. Not elegant but it's cheap and it works.
Click to expand...

That's good idea would you put it out take then or intake?
If me moving the card does help with temps but kills performance I'll look into buying a new motherboard that fits my bill the asrock z68 extreme 7 does it all but not sure where I can buy from now, and it's price.

Bart_Hunt said:
I had temps like that in SLI 2x gtx660ti, stock cooling, top card going up to 70 esdily and bottom at 60. Still everything worked nice, this was on matx board so no space between cards at all.
Click to expand...

Yeah cards working fine no issues I have managed to lower the top card quite a bit under volting etc but I'll never be able to overclock it because it will just hit it's 94c target.

Will let you know how it goes.
 
The good news Temps was unreal top card max was just 66c after Heaven 4.0

The bad news I had about 20fps less from Tomb Raider bench. and around 50fps less from Heaven.

So look like a new Motherboard with better PCIe lanes.
 
I going to need to re-run my test again @PCIe 16x/4x

When I changed the cards around I didn't notice that it re-enabled ULPS so the performance loss I was getting could very well been that and not PCI-e x4
Just done a Tomb Raider Bench with ULPS on and got same results as 16/4x vs 8/8x
 
stulid said:
Theres some other little points about the UD7 you should be aware off.

• No internal GFX solution as it doesn't pass the CPU's built-in gfx signal to the rear backpanel despite being a Z68 chipset.

• No PCI-E3.o support if you add an Ivybridge CPU, the NF200 chip wont pass the signal through so is PCI-E2.0 only.
Click to expand...

I had a good think about the UD7 and in the end thought it would be best to pass on it. I would have had to put my Sound card in the middle "if it would have fitted" of both GPUs in return I would have kinder been back square one.

So now I looking at using the PCI-e 4x lane on my Asrock z68 Extreme 4 Gen3
My first test I noticed a massive performance loss but I also forgot about ULPS switched back on lol
They is one issue with my case doing this though, at the bottom my two Hard Drives are mounted on the carbide 540 so I now need a 3.5 HDD cage to be mounted at the back on the case and this will allow the bottom card more space.
 
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stulid said:
Yeah the AIR540 would be 100% spot on if you could do that with 3.5"drives. I discovered this too when making this here. Really wanted the two SSD's to be on show but had to relent.
Click to expand...

Very nice build. I looking on OCUK at different 3.5 cages and so far I not sure if any them allow to be screwed into the back.
I been told the cage from a 900D should fit can't link because the image is from another PC site.

The other issue will be heat, would I need a fan on the cage. I think it should be ok but couple other say other wise.
 
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