Is it too small?

winds0r

winds0r

winds0r

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8 Jun 2011
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you could have two of the cards in, but the second card would only fit in the PCIe X4 slot, which would hamper its performance quite a lot.

it would also mean there is very little room between the cards, which would be a major restriction on the top cards airflow, making it get very hot.

it would, however, fit in your case, because its designed to take full sized ATX motherboards. the bottom card would just dangle far below the motherboard edge.

personally i wouldnt bother with the second card
 
Reaper 392 said:
you could have two of the cards in, but the second card would only fit in the PCIe X4 slot, which would hamper its performance quite a lot.

it would also mean there is very little room between the cards, which would be a major restriction on the top cards airflow, making it get very hot.

it would, however, fit in your case, because its designed to take full sized ATX motherboards. the bottom card would just dangle far below the motherboard edge.

personally i wouldnt bother with the second card
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You don't think it's worth it? My pursuit of computer perfection is driving me mad I think...
 
Also, because those cards are so heavy you often find people need some sort of case modidication or a support of some kind to hold these cards up. The PCIe slot alone doesn't do this too well. So with two of them on there, could be quite a bit of extra strain unless you get a support to prop it up. I seem to remember someone saying lian li sell one.

Also, at the bottom of your mobo you've got quite a lot of headers as well. Putting a second one of these in will overhang them and you'll need to make sure it doesn't affect your wiring and that you can actually still have stuff plugged in.
 
if the bottom slot was an x8 slot then i would say to go for it, but its an X4, so the card will be slowed down. since crossfire only works symmetrically, both cards would be at x4 speeds, which will make them about 25-50% slower than normal i believe. at x8 speed at normal resolutions they are not slowed down atall, however if you have a 3 screen eyefinity setup they could be slowed down by as much as 2% :eek::p

there are three possible solutions to this though, however it would be best to check with someone else if they will work

1. for your second card, get a dual slot 580GTX with an aftermarket cooler (eg the MSI twin frozr II), possibly by a different make. use that as the top card and put your current triple slot card in the x8 slot
this will still give the 'cards are really close together' problem, but they will still be running at x8/x8 performance

2. get a new motherboard where there is a decent amount of space between the two PCIe x16 slots which run at x8 or higher such as:
MSI P67 GD53
Asrock Z68 extreme4
you could then buy another of the triple slot GTX580 and use them in crossfire, but the cards would be right up against each other

3. do a combination of 1 and 2, with the dual slot one on the top. you would then have the two cards running at x8/x8 performance and they would have room to breathe
 
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winds0r said:
I appreciate this makes me sound like a noob, but I can have two graphics cards, one ATI and one Nvidia?
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there are some VERY expensive motherboards that allow you to do this i believe (we're talking £300+) but yours certainly cant. also, i believe this mixing brands crossfire/SLI is very poorly made.

for crossfire or SLI you need the same model of card ie, two 6950's, or two 480GTX's. i am 95% sure that the brand of the cards does not matter, just as long as you change the clock speeds so that they are both the same (very easily done), and that they have the same amount of VRAM
 
winds0r said:
I appreciate this makes me sound like a noob, but I can have two graphics cards, one ATI and one Nvidia?
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Not in a sort of hybrid Crossfire/SLI.

That is not unless you buy a board with Lucid Hydra and that seems a waste of time.

And if you were going to buy a new board just get a full size board which supports SLI.
 
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Cheers the response guys. I think, instead of buying a new GPU just for the sake of it, I'll hold out and perhaps treat myself a few months down the line.

I've only had this PC for three weeks, specs are below. I guess I should just be happy with what I have. Shame about my GTX580 being so big - I only bought it because it looked cool.
 
You CAN, but you can't use them in CF/SLI (well... actually, there is Lucid Hydra, but afaik it isn't great yet). I'm not 100% on what you can do, but I've seen people using an NV card for PhysX and an ATI for everything else (requires unofficial drivers) - probably doesn't apply if you are using a 580. From your setup, I take it you are using your rig for gaming - in which case, I definitely wouldn't recommend it.

tl;dr Stick with either nv/ati, mixing them is quite a bit of hassle.

EDIT - epically beaten :(
 
I like your 'tl;dr' just in case you thought I wouldn't read it ;P

I am indeed using it for gaming... To be perfectly honest, my computer at present is perfectly fine. I guess I just feel like 'now I have it, what else can I do to it/buy to make it even better' .. This is costly!
 
sorry for being confusing earlier and suggesting the 6950. for some reason i thought the card you linked me was a 6950, hence me suggesting you get one.

ive now fixed my post
 
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