Maximum PC

I want to install my vid card into the lowest PCIe slot as possible. That way, it will be easiest for it to receive outside cool air from the fans on the bottom of the case.

This is the MOBO I will be using. http://directron.com/990fxagd80v2.html

It has 4 PCIe slots and ALL of them have 16 lanes. There is no 16/16/8/8 or anything like that. The top slot is just as good as the bottom slot.

Will I cause any problems for my system if I install my vid card into the bottom slot???

Actually that's not the case. The second slot is always x8. The fourth slot is always x4. The third slot is either x8 or x16, depending if the second slot is taken. Will it cause problems? No. Is it worthwhile? No.

Also bottom intake fans are kind of meh, mostly because of clearance reasons (dust is a huge problem too).

My case is the CoolMaster Stryker case and it's made for lower intake fans. It has filters on the bottom and the top and can be removed and cleaned. You can install 2 120mm fans on the bottom, which I plan to do to pump clean, cold outside air up into the video card.

Read the specs on the mobo, as long as the second slot is empty the third slot will remain x16 which means it will be closer to the bottom of the case which is exactly what I want.

First, Merry Christmas.

Second, could you make sure that I can install my new video card successfully into the third PCIe slot? Successfully meaning it will still have 16 lanes available when I plug my video card into it. It will be the only vid card or any card plugged into the board. Below is the link. Thanks.


http://us.msi.com/product/mb/990FXA-GD8 ... div=Detail

Go read the manual, if there are no warnings about it, then you can assume you can do it. But I had a look at the case, there's no real practicality I can find because the PSU is bottom mounted. Even if you put a bottom fan there, your video card and PSU will be fighting for that air.

I agree but the vid card is twice the length of the PSU....with three fans so there is plenty of room for the vid card to receive cool air from the bottom of the rig.

Plus the PSU will be sitting on a cut out all it's own where it will suck up it's own air and send out the warm air out the back. It doesn't need any extra air it's all taken care of as far as fresh air is concerned.

While I got you what does this mean?

"DDR3 2133 *(OC)/ 1800 *(OC)/ 1600 *(OC)/ 1333/ 1066 SDRAM"


I know OC means overclock but does it mean it only accepts 1333 or less size RAM???

Here's the thing though...

From my understanding, it's not really so much how much cold air you can get across the heat sinks. If something needs cold air, it'll blow it across itself. So the idea is to fill up the case with as much cold air as possible. So if not just the fact that the PSU and GPU will be eating at the same space more or less, it's now the GPU has less of a "air" reservoir to suck cold air from.

In regards to RAM, DDR3 officially only goes up to 1333. You have to overclock the memory controller to accept anything higher.

That's weird cause over at Directron I can buy memory that is 1600, 1866, 2000, 2133mhz. No OC.

Ah wait, I guess I'm wrong. I think JEDEC only specified up to 1333, then Intel came and added more. The official limit is 2133. Either way though, the default setting is 1333.

That is OC'd for DDR3. All that means is the maker of the stick specifies it will support that speed. I presume you mean with XMP it will OC itself (on compatible MBs) without user input.

I wish people would quit with the miss-information... Jedec's official spec for DDR3 memory recognizes the following speeds: 6400 (DDR3-800), 8500 (DDR3-1066), 10600 (DDR3-1333), and 12800 (DDR3-1600), it's on the CPU side that support is mostly limited to DDR3-1333, and not that it matters for this discussion, but LGA-2011 CPU's natively support DDR3-1600. To reach memory speeds beyond what your CPU is spec'd for, you have to overclock the memory controller.

"From my understanding, it's not really so much how much cold air you can get across the heat sinks. If something needs cold air, it'll blow it across itself. So the idea is to fill up the case with as much cold air as possible. So if not just the fact that the PSU and GPU will be eating at the same space more or less, it's now the GPU has less of a "air" reservoir to suck cold air from."

My PSU will be sucking up cold air from the bottom of the chassis, then it will spit out warm air out the back of the chassis. While this is going on my 140mm fan will be blowing cold air up and into my video card. The PSU will have zero effect on the air in my case.

I went back on Wikipedia because I figured I was out of date. But apparently DDR3-2666 is officially recognized too.

But not like it matters anyway.