nanobadger
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After a terrible experience trying to run three 290x's and keep a decent temperature, I've gone back to Nvidia cards and given up on mining. Specifically three 780 Ti superclocked. I got the reference design over the ATX cooler to blow heat out the back. I have installed two and they run well, but I am afraid with my motherboard, squeezing the three together will overheat the cards. Wanting to run three cards for 5760x1080 resolution. Is there a motherboard that will allow me to put a space between each card? And will one slot between each be enough? (Don't want to mess with water cooling) The carbide 540 case I have will hold EATX, but I also have a Antec 1100 that will hold ATX-XL. Prefer to keep the carbide case though. Current Setup: Processor: Intel 3930k @ 4.6 Cooler: Corsair H110 Motherboard: Asus P9X79 Pro Memory: Samsung Green 16gb @ 2100 Video Card: (3x)EVGA GTX780 Ti, 03G-P4-2883-KR Power Supply: Seasonic X-1250 Sound Card: SB Titanium X-Fi HD Case: Corsair 540 Carbide Monitor: Asus (3x)VG248QE 144hz
post edited by nanobadger - 2014/02/19 14:08:56
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Gomez99
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Re: 3-Way SLI GTX780 Ti, 03G-P4-2883-KR, Spacing
2014/02/19 16:03:47
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nVidia cards run much cooler than AMD. As for sandwiching the cards together it should be fine(I believe nVidia provides more space between cards than AMD does). Still the primary and secondary cards will be hotter. If you want add rubber spacers to the top of the cards and have a have blown in fresh air to the intakes.
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Grey_Beard
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Re: 3-Way SLI GTX780 Ti, 03G-P4-2883-KR, Spacing
2014/02/19 20:01:44
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As gomez99 says, the two closest cards will run the warmest. I have those cards in SLI, but I have water cooled them. Personally I would not do a 3-way SLI without water. My temps are in the high forties when folding in this set-up. The rubber spacers will help, but you will also need to make sure you have the right number of fans. Good air flow can help you in this set-up to maintain lower temps. The six fans plus the reference coolers could be enough. I have 28 fans in my rig, as my two 480mm radiators are in a push/pull configuration.
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Nitemare3219
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Re: 3-Way SLI GTX780 Ti, 03G-P4-2883-KR, Spacing
2014/02/19 20:24:48
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You can do it, but airflow will be huge - especially if you're thinking about adding anything additional to the clock speeds. As they mentioned, small rubber spacers aren't a bad idea and will work. I've had to do it before when my old 670's fan shroud stuck out too far and the fans were hitting the back side of the PCB on my sound card.
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nanobadger
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Re: 3-Way SLI GTX780 Ti, 03G-P4-2883-KR, Spacing
2014/02/20 07:24:22
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Hmmm... thanks for the suggestions, I could definitely add some fans and rubber, but I still a bit worried to stack them together.
I was thinking a board EVGA Dark X79 would allow me to put a space between each card. I'm just not sure I can put a dual slot card in the very bottom PCI slot. My case does have 8 slots so I think it's possible.
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Grey_Beard
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Re: 3-Way SLI GTX780 Ti, 03G-P4-2883-KR, Spacing
2014/02/20 07:42:17
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nanobadger
Hmmm... thanks for the suggestions, I could definitely add some fans and rubber, but I still a bit worried to stack them together. I was thinking a board EVGA Dark X79 would allow me to put a space between each card. I'm just not sure I can put a dual slot card in the very bottom PCI slot. My case does have 8 slots so I think it's possible.
The cards take two slots each so you really do not have the space regardless of what board you use. If you had twelve or ten, then you could leave a space between each card. In a 3-way SLI you will use 6 slots and mostly likely three of the four PCIe 3.0 slots, which are the longer of two types of slots . Since they are so close, airflow will be a hard task since the reference coolers have no where to send the exhaust to. This is why most people use water in this type of set-up. For air, you need to create space with the rubber spacers and get as much air into the case as possible. You then have to have a good exhaust flow to get the hot air out.
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nanobadger
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Re: 3-Way SLI GTX780 Ti, 03G-P4-2883-KR, Spacing
2014/02/20 09:28:18
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Grey_Beard
nanobadger
Hmmm... thanks for the suggestions, I could definitely add some fans and rubber, but I still a bit worried to stack them together. I was thinking a board EVGA Dark X79 would allow me to put a space between each card. I'm just not sure I can put a dual slot card in the very bottom PCI slot. My case does have 8 slots so I think it's possible.
The cards take two slots each so you really do not have the space regardless of what board you use. If you had twelve or ten, then you could leave a space between each card. In a 3-way SLI you will use 6 slots and mostly likely three of the four PCIe 3.0 slots, which are the longer of two types of slots . Since they are so close, airflow will be a hard task since the reference coolers have no where to send the exhaust to. This is why most people use water in this type of set-up. For air, you need to create space with the rubber spacers and get as much air into the case as possible. You then have to have a good exhaust flow to get the hot air out.
It does look possible, I think with a board like those pictured my temps might be okay with some space between the cards. Ah ha, improved my google skills: overclock.net/t/1425148/x79-board-with-1-4-7-spacing-for-tri-sli So now I just need to decide, spend $500 on a mobo, or keep my P9X79 Pro and spend a little more for water cooling. I've just never done WC and it looks like a pain.
post edited by nanobadger - 2014/02/20 09:42:53
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Grey_Beard
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Re: 3-Way SLI GTX780 Ti, 03G-P4-2883-KR, Spacing
2014/02/20 09:58:49
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Water cooling is not easy but it is not very difficult. On a five point scale it's a 2.5. Just need some basic skills, some patience, and time to plan things out. If you built your PC then it is not difficult. If you have put in RAM or exchanged a drive it is slightly more difficult than that. Research and then if you need help this community is here to assist.
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boner42
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Re: 3-Way SLI GTX780 Ti, 03G-P4-2883-KR, Spacing
2014/02/20 10:27:43
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You could try using a Silverstone Raven case.
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Muromets
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Re: 3-Way SLI GTX780 Ti, 03G-P4-2883-KR, Spacing
2014/02/20 16:09:12
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nanobadger
Is there a motherboard that will allow me to put a space between each card?
And will one slot between each be enough? (Don't want to mess with water cooling)
The Asus Rampage IV Extreme motherboard allows to put three GPUs in SLI with a free slot between dual-slot cards. Basically you put the 1st GPU in the top red "1" slot, 2nd GPU in the black "2B" slot and 3rd in the bottom red "4" slot. The GPUs will run at 16x, 8x and 8x PCIe speeds. You will need to find a longer 2S 3-way SLI bridge to connect the cards; I got mine from German Ebay. "Will the spacing be enough"? I used to run 3x EVGA 680ftw+ like that in Rosewill Thor V2 case which has very good airflow, and my cards seldom touched the temps over 70C. However they were getting noisy as their fans approached 3000RPM to stay cool, so eventually I've ventured into water cooling (and there is no return from that :)) P.S. Another motherboard that allowed me to do 3-way sli with empty slot between the cards was EVGA z77ftw (at 8x speed for all three GPUs but via PLX chip). But looks like you already have 3930K CPU, and x79 chipset with 40 native PCIe lanes is better for for 3+ way SLI -- so I would recommend ASUS RIVE to you.
post edited by Muromets - 2014/02/20 16:52:50
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ASUS RIVE | i7 3930K @ 4.6GHz | 2 x EVGA 1080Ti FE | AGON 35" G-Sync 3440x1440 @100Hz | G.SKILL 32Gb @2133MHz | Rosewill THOR V2 | Corsair AZ1500i | H2O 7.120 loop XSPC/EK | Logitech G19
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nanobadger
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Re: 3-Way SLI GTX780 Ti, 03G-P4-2883-KR, Spacing
2014/02/21 07:36:57
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Muromets
nanobadger
Is there a motherboard that will allow me to put a space between each card?
And will one slot between each be enough? (Don't want to mess with water cooling)
The Asus Rampage IV Extreme motherboard allows to put three GPUs in SLI with a free slot between dual-slot cards. Basically you put the 1st GPU in the top red "1" slot, 2nd GPU in the black "2B" slot and 3rd in the bottom red "4" slot. The GPUs will run at 16x, 8x and 8x PCIe speeds. You will need to find a longer 2S 3-way SLI bridge to connect the cards; I got mine from German Ebay.
"Will the spacing be enough"? I used to run 3x EVGA 680ftw+ like that in Rosewill Thor V2 case which has very good airflow, and my cards seldom touched the temps over 70C. However they were getting noisy as their fans approached 3000RPM to stay cool, so eventually I've ventured into water cooling (and there is no return from that :))
P.S. Another motherboard that allowed me to do 3-way sli with empty slot between the cards was EVGA z77ftw (at 8x speed for all three GPUs but via PLX chip). But looks like you already have 3930K CPU, and x79 chipset with 40 native PCIe lanes is better for for 3+ way SLI -- so I would recommend ASUS RIVE to you.
Thanks, is it a big performance hit to go x16 x8 x8 over a board that will do x16 x16 x8?
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Muromets
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Re: 3-Way SLI GTX780 Ti, 03G-P4-2883-KR, Spacing
2014/02/21 12:13:27
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When I went from air to water cooling with my 3 680s I've essentially moved from 16x 8x 8x to 16x 8x 16x (due to different slots used on RIVE) and frankly did not notice any performance improvement. I think 8x on one of the cards is the "least performance denominator", but since I've applied the NVIDIa's x79 PCIe 3.0 hack the 8x PCI 3.0 bandwidth seems to be working fine at my 6MPixel resolution. With 16x 8x 8x on x79 I was seeing all three GPUs utilized in high 90s% in well-written games (Crysis 3, Tomb Raider). I think Vega had a thread on PCIe 2.0 vs. 3.0 and concluded that 8x 3.0 for 3-4 SLI provides enough bandwidth for the current surround resolutions (under 3x 4K :)).
post edited by Muromets - 2014/02/21 12:24:19
ASUS RIVE | i7 3930K @ 4.6GHz | 2 x EVGA 1080Ti FE | AGON 35" G-Sync 3440x1440 @100Hz | G.SKILL 32Gb @2133MHz | Rosewill THOR V2 | Corsair AZ1500i | H2O 7.120 loop XSPC/EK | Logitech G19
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