Two gigabyte 7970's Ghz in crossfire on a Gigabyte X58A-UD3R (1366)

sneaka

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Jun 30, 2013
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Hey guys! After having bought a Gigabyte 7970 Ghz card a few months back, I decided to buy another one to run in CF thinking I would have the proper PCI-E layout for them. What I didn't realize was that with my config, the graphics card spacing would be way too close to each other and present a heating issue. Do you guys see any way around this other than a custom water cooling system? Do you think I'll need a new motherboard with bigger spacing in between PCI-E to make them work with adequate cooling? I was looking at an Asus Rampage III Formula that I could pick up from ebay for like $200. Or even a Foxconn Renaissance for l$100. I'm really not looking forward to dumping too much more money into this money pit. Any recommendations would be appreciated.

Current Setup:
I7-950
HAF 932
Gigabyte X58A-UD3R
Gigabyte 7970 Ghz x2
G.Skill 12GB (6x2GB) DDR3
Corsair 850W PSU
 

BBCXC

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Jul 6, 2013
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An inelegant solution would be to use a riser card/cable, although with a nice case like you have it would ruin the aesthetic qualities you probably desire. i'm also unsure about what kind of interference you get with the ribbon cable variety.

For reference though here's one on amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Micro-SATA-Cables-Express-Flexible/dp/B0057M16Q8/ref=pd_sim_e_3/178-7457211-0855316

Another solution would be to just put one of the cards in the x8 slot, keeping the thermals lower whilst you save for a new rig, it would probably kill performance, or just put up with higher thermals for a while.

The rampage III looks like it has a similar pciex16 layout to the UD3R you already have, the renaissance looks like it has a 1 slot gap, i'm not 100% sure with the rampage III though.

Personally rather than spending $100 on an old rig i'd save and put that towards a new rig, However, if you can sell your UD3R and effectively do a motherboard swap for no-cost that's the best value.

Those cards have pcie 3.0 so a 8x8 CF setup on a haswell board would have the same bandwidth a x16x16 pcie 2.0 will have.

 

sneaka

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Jun 30, 2013
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@luckiest charm: I was considering liquid cooling, but I don't know much about it. It also seemed like it can get a bit pricey. Its something I most definitely would consider in the future. Thanks for the link on the case.

@BBCXC: I was looking into those riser card/cables, but I wasn't sure where I would mount the card. I wouldn't mind too much about the aesthetic part of the case for now, as long as I can get it to run.

In regards to the x8 slot, I would totally have ran it in that setup on this board for the time being. The only thing is is that the first x8 slot is blocked by one of my video cards and the second x8 slot is too low that the PSU doesn't give enough clearance for my other video card to be placed there.

Going to work! Will look into it some more once I get home. Thanks guys!
 

sneaka

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Jun 30, 2013
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Well I took the plunge and ended up buying an AsRock X58 Extreme6 on ebay. It doesn't come with the I/O backplate though and I can't seem to find anyone selling them due to these Motherboards being discontinued. Does anyone know of a site that sells these? I've tried Google with no luck. Am I stuck installing the board without one?