Show Us Your Rig [2]

LiquidSnak · 10 Nov 2010

I am planning an SLI setup in the future, and I bought my motherboard with adequately spaced PCIe slots to avoid that exact issue

linnemeyerhere · 11 Nov 2010

Good to know as I thought that spacing was standardized?

ZaLiTH · 11 Nov 2010

linnemeyerhere said:

A quick question: When you run SLI or Crossfire rigs doesn't the card on the bottom rob the card or cards above it of a clean cool airflow ? I would suspect that the bottom card would run much lower temps to it's cards above it?

Yup... It makes a big difference. Before I got my current 8800GTS 512mb, I was running two 320mb cards in SLI. Keep in mind I had overclocked them as well, but after a few hours of gaming the top card would hit about 82 degrees while the bottom only got to about 76 or 77.

I ended up modding my side panel and putting two 12cm fans directly over the cards to blast air onto them from outside the case, which did help quite a lot.

LiquidSnak said:

I am planning an SLI setup in the future, and I bought my motherboard with adequately spaced PCIe slots to avoid that exact issue

Spacing is important, but it won't make as much of a difference as you'd think... My XFX 750a-SLI board has pretty decent spacing for the slots, I still had about 1.5cm-2cm between my cards and each were the standard double slot thickness that's become so common.

In all honesty, unless you have some sort of setup to push air into your case specifically for the graphics cards, I can promise you, your top card will get a fair amount warmer.

LiquidSnak · 11 Nov 2010

I see a lot of motherboards with the PCIex16 slots one away from eachother, i.e. with a single slot between them, and I made sure to buy one with two between them :)

ZaLiTH · 11 Nov 2010

LiquidSnak said:

I see a lot of motherboards with the PCIex16 slots one away from eachother, i.e. with a single slot between them, and I made sure to buy one with two between them :)

I know exactly what you mean... I did the same when I was researching the components for my current setup. My board also has decent space between the two slots...

tw33k · 11 Nov 2010

NEW: CM Storm Sniper, Lamptron FC-5 v2 fan controller, 140mm Noise Blocker bottom fan, replaced rear fan with a 120mm Scythe Kaze Ultra (3000 rpm), have a 200mm Antec Big Boy ready (if needed). Upgrading PSU next week so I'll try to get the cable management a bit tidier if I can (it's hard to get it better than it is due to the ASUS U3S6 pci-e card for my SSD) but it's pretty good. I'm very happy but I didn't realise the case was so big. Had to rearrange everything so it'd fit.

Bare Foot Kid · 11 Nov 2010

tw33k said:

NEW: CM Storm Sniper, Lamptron FC-5 fan controller, 140mm Noise Blocker bottom fan, replaced rear fan with a 120mm Scythe Kaze Ultra (3000 rpm), have a 200mm Antec Big Boy ready (if needed). Upgrading PSU next week so I'll try to get the cable management a bit tidier if I can (it's hard to get it better than it is due to needed the ASUS U3S6 pci-e card for my SSD) but it's pretty good. I'm very happy but I didn't realise the case was so big. Had to rearrange everything so it'd fit.

Looks good!

tw33k · 11 Nov 2010

Thanks. Still messier than I'd like (cable management is a bi+ch!)

Dave76 · 11 Nov 2010

That's a great looking case, good job

What PSU are you getting?

Make sure it has long cables, for that big case.

tw33k · 11 Nov 2010

Thanks. Need to finish it but i was at for like 4 hours and couldn't cope any more.
I'm getting a Corsair AX750 Gold.