Maximum PC

I have an Asus P6T motherboard that supports tri-sli, but from reading the manual, only two of the pci-express x16 slots actually have 16 lanes; the third one only has 4, which thus equals the MB's max of 36 PCI-Express lanes. I have two EVGA GTX 470's and have looked at installing them but i realized that there is almost no space in-between the video cards when they're right next to each other in the full x16 slots. I noticed also that with both cards installed right next to each other, my temps increase by almost 10c. Playing Mafia 2 i was averaging about 80c max at 70 percent fan speed with one video card installed; with both installed i hit 85c at 80 percent fan speed (90c if i leave the fan at 70 percent).

So my question is this: Would it be worth it to move the second GTX 470 to the third PCI-Express slot even though it's the slower x4 speed and would this cause a performance cut, or should i just deal with the extra heat? I should mention that if i can lower my fan speed to keep things quieter i'd rather do that, but i don't want to limit my second 470 either... Is a x4 slot going to hinder the 470's performance?

Is the question not "can I run just one GTX470"? I run a P6T Deluxe, and the only reason I run two cards is the three 23" freaking screens. You've got one...so what's the real issue?

Even though the "ad" says it can do Tri, you can't physically unless it's 3 low end cards. One 470 is fine in an x4 slot (that's x8 PCIe 1.2) and you have two?

I have 3 pci-express slots. Two are blue, indicating that they function at the full x16 speed/lanes; the third is white because it only functions at x4 speed. I have one gtx 470 in the first, full speed slot, and i'm trying to figure out where to put the second 470. If i put it in the second full speed slot, it is so close to the first card that it increases my temps, so i thought i'd move the second card to the next pci-express slot down, which would give me more space between cards and decrease my temps; BUT doing this would put the second card in a pci-express slot that only supports x4 lanes instead of x16....

So my "real" question is; would moving the card to the slower PCI-express slot limit the graphics card in any way, maybe by causing a bottleneck or something?


And in answer to your first question "Is the question not "can I run just one GTX470"? I run a P6T Deluxe, and the only reason I run two cards is the three 23" freaking screens. You've got one...so what's the real issue?

I want to run both cards because for one, i have two cards so why wouldn't i use the second one, and two, my monitor is a 27" monitor at 1920x1200 resolution and with games like Mafia 2, one card struggles a bit with physX on.

I've also checked the GPU usage while playing the game and it's at 100 percent most of the time, so it's not a cpu bottleneck that causes trouble playing the game...it's just that at that high of resolution with all settings maxed and the PhysX turned on, one GTX 470 isn't quite enough for a smooth gameplay experience.

Here is a link the shows a picture of my MB. On the left hand side you can see two blue PCIe slots and one white one...these are the ones i'm talking about, in case my descriptions weren't accurate enough.

http://www.techwarelabs.com/asus-p6t/


And why couldn't I run 3 graphics cards?...MaxPC does it all the time, or at least reviews pc's that do. I have 3 slots, so why wouldn't i be able to do it?


i7-930 2.8Ghz OC'd to 3.3Ghz
6GB tri-channel DDR3 Corsair Dominator
Asus P6T MB
NZXT Tempest Evo
EVGA GTX 470
1000W Silent Pro

On my rampage ii extreme, I can tell the 2nd and 3rd slots to run at x8 each, or x16 and x1 in the BIOS. is there a setting like that in the BIOS for the p6t?





Ted

I don't think so. I've been in and out of the bios looking for things like that and can't seem to find any. My manual doesn't mention anything either. Thanks for the thought though I wouldn't have checked had you not said anything.