Using 3rd PCIe slot.

andicole0 · 25 Feb 2015 at 10:57

I use an Asrock Z68 Extreme 7 Gen 3 motherboard with two GTX680's in PCIe 1 and 4 as recommended in the manual.

GTX680 no 1 is getting quite a bit hotter than card 2, what will be the effect be if I moved card 2 to a PCIe Slot further away from the 1st card - will it in fact even run SLI. Am I looking at new motherboard? !!

Cheers.

Andi.

snips86x · 25 Feb 2015 at 11:00

I understand the GPUs would still run at x16/x8 but there should be no issue with moving to the next PCIe slot. I don't think it will affect performance but it will cool the cards down.

andicole0 · 25 Feb 2015 at 11:31

snips86x said:
I understand the GPUs would still run at x16/x8 but there should be no issue with moving to the next PCIe slot. I don't think it will affect performance but it will cool the cards down.

OK that's good, just wondering why the manual says use two slots that are close together. I'll dig out a longer bridge cable and see what happens.

Andi.

snips86x · 25 Feb 2015 at 11:32

Well running 3 GPUs would be x16/x8/x8 so running 2 would be either x16x/x16 or x16/x8 either of which will make no noticeable difference.

andicole0 · 25 Feb 2015 at 12:28

I think I'm slightly worried that the motherboard will not support SLI in any other slots than the ones mentioned in the user manual.

Andi.

snips86x · 25 Feb 2015 at 12:29

1x PCIe 3.0 x16 Slot, 4 PCIe 2.0 x16 Slots, Supports AMD 3-Way CrossFireX™ and NVIDIA® 3-Way SLI™

http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z68 Extreme7 Gen3/

andicole0 · 25 Feb 2015 at 15:01

No SLI with cards in 1 and 5 (both cards recognised by Windows but no option in Geforce control panel to enable SLI) I don't have a long enough bridge for 1-6.

Andi.

snips86x · 25 Feb 2015 at 15:03

ok - I'd recommend using 1 & 3 or 1 & 4 - The cards are getting hot but there is nothing you can do about. What case do you have? Have you looked to change your cooling configuration?

andicole0 · 25 Feb 2015 at 15:28

Looks like I've had it. It appears you have to use slot 1 or no SLI is recognised.

2 is covered by the card in slot 1, 3 is an X1 slot (short) 4 is the recommended for 2 way SLI and works, 5 doesn't work and 6 I don't have a long enough bridge cable.

The case is a Thermaltake GT10, it's possible I could fit a small extraction fan between the two video cards.

But I think a new motherboard is going to happen ;-)

Cheers.

Andi.