New OCUK X99 Builds - Why MSI X99S SLI Plus?

[noisecrime]

Hi,

So my Titan Onyx is showing its age, I could upgrade but I feel the urge for a new system. I checked out the new Titan Typhoon and it looks really nice, but whilst reading up on the motherboard, the MSI X99S SLI Plus, a review pointed out that going SLI would obscure both the 1x PCI-E slots making them useless, another concern was the placement of SLI with one card directly beneath the other.

If this is true, may I ask why OCUK choose this motherboard, especially for their SLI build since it seems counter-productive?

Also is it possible when selecting these builds to specify a different motherboard?

Couple of other questions

1. When I bought my Onyx, OCUK provided most if not all the packaging for the various components, motherboard, and GPU at least, along with all the 'extras' that they contained. Is this still standard practice?

2. Is there anyway to know what memory and gpu manufactures are used in the Titan Typhoon and the Storm (though the storm doesn't seem suited to sli) and again can specific manufacture/models be specified when purchasing?

Thanks

 

[noisecrime]

Thanks Lee for your reply.

That is all really good and useful information to me and i'll most likely go that route, once I've decided whether to upgrade or get a new PC.

Still think its odd that OCUK are offering a motherboard that going SLI would appear to prevent any additional cards from being installed though? I wonder can you run x1 in x16 slots? I know you can go the other way if you don't mind the loss in transfer speeds.