Help Picking a MB with Max Space between GPU's

stulid · 22 Feb 2014 at 01:07

It would drop the top slot to 8X I would have thought.

So 8X/8X/8X across the three slots.

shankly1985 · 22 Feb 2014 at 01:30

stulid said:
It would drop the top slot to 8X I would have thought.

So 8X/8X/8X across the three slots.

That's still fine, I run 8x - 8x now. 16x - 8x wouldn't make much difference.

shankly1985 · 23 Feb 2014 at 00:50

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 · 23 Feb 2014 at 04:58

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.

Bart_Hunt · 23 Feb 2014 at 06:12

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.

shankly1985 · 23 Feb 2014 at 12:23

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.

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.

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.

shankly1985 · 23 Feb 2014 at 16:35

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.

shankly1985 · 24 Feb 2014 at 13:23

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

shankly1985 · 24 Feb 2014 at 13:29

This is what I was getting @16x - 4x same as running 8x - 8x with ULPS on
https://onedrive.live.com/redir?res...uthkey=!AFu8PHSeorbHf38&v=3&ithint=photo,.png

This is what I should be getting and this what I will now compare 16x - 4x to
https://onedrive.live.com/redir?res...uthkey=!AEuyNpdzhTxbCuI&v=3&ithint=photo,.png

stulid · 24 Feb 2014 at 13:30

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.

shankly1985 · 24 Feb 2014 at 13:46

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.

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.

stulid · 24 Feb 2014 at 14:34

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.

shankly1985 · 24 Feb 2014 at 14:44

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.

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.

hawkhench · 24 Feb 2014 at 15:10

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.

Aye, with all the space in the back hopefully if they make a rev2 there'll be a bit more in the way of options for 3.5" drive management. Doing it the way you've had to causes issues with a 360 rad in the front.