990FXA-UD5 and 970 SLI

[Beefjus]

Hi folks! I'm planning on upgrading my rig soon and I was wondering if anyone has tried running two Gigabyte GTX970 G1's in SLI with a Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5 board before? I'm worried about the space, cause the G1 cards are taller than the other brands, and I'm not sure if the airflow will be decent (let alone if they'll fit).

 

Here's my rig, in case you guys need to know more:

CPU: AMD FX8350 Black Edition

Motherboard: Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5

RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8gb kit

GPU: Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X OC

Case: Coolermaster HAF 912 (no window)

Storage: 120GB Samsung 840 for my OS and productivity, 1TB Seagate SSHD for storage and games.

PSU: Coolermaster GX II 750w bronze

Display: Samsung S22D390 and a 42" Toshiba Regza TV.

Cooling: Coolermaster Votex Plus, x2 Corsair AF120 as exhaust, x2 Corsair SP120 as intake, Coolermaster Megaflow on top as exhaust (no LED)

OS: Windows 8.1

 

Thanks!

[Nena Trinity]

Hi folks! I'm planning on upgrading my rig soon and I was wondering if anyone has tried running two Gigabyte GTX970 G1's in SLI with a Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5 board before? I'm worried about the space, cause the G1 cards are taller than the other brands, and I'm not sure if the airflow will be decent (let alone if they'll fit).

 

Here's my rig, in case you guys need to know more:

CPU: AMD FX8350 Black Edition

Motherboard: Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5

RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8gb kit

GPU: Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X OC

Case: Coolermaster HAF 912 (no window)

Storage: 120GB Samsung 840 for my OS and productivity, 1TB Seagate SSHD for storage and games.

PSU: Coolermaster GX II 750w bronze

Display: Samsung S22D390 and a 42" Toshiba Regza TV.

Cooling: Coolermaster Votex Plus, x2 Corsair AF120 as exhaust, x2 Corsair SP120 as intake, Coolermaster Megaflow on top as exhaust (no LED)

OS: Windows 8.1

 

Thanks!

So your goal is 4K?

Why not slap in another 290?

[FLUFFYJELLO]

Your CPU will bottleneck the cards, just a heads up. Motherboard doesn't matter, even if they fit they won't perform like you're probably expecting.

And really, getting another 290 and upgrading that CPU to an i5/Xeon/i7 would benefit you much more.

[Beefjus]

Thanks for the quick replies, guys.

 

Nena360- Not really aiming for 4k, just want to get past the BS that nvidia is pulling to gimp AMD cards on gameworks games.

 

FLUFFY JELLO- I was thinking of just changing my board, cpu, and gpu, but then the harsh reality of not having enough money to do all that hit me like a truck. I don't intend on running SLI just yet, but I do intend on doing so once the price drops even further in the future.

[Nena Trinity]

Your CPU will bottleneck the cards, just a heads up. Motherboard doesn't matter, even if they fit they won't perform like you're probably expecting.

And really, getting another 290 and upgrading that CPU to an i5/Xeon/i7 would benefit you much more.

Well if he is going for 4K I think he will be fine with FX!

 

Thanks for the quick replies, guys.

 

I was thinking of just changing my board, cpu, and gpu, but then the harsh reality of not having enough money to do all that hit me like a truck. I don't intend on running SLI just yet, but I do intend on doing so once the price drops even further in the future.

Yeah better not use to much!

[Beefjus]

Also, wouldn't two 290's be too much for my PSU?

[salecar3]

Also, wouldn't two 290's be too much for my PSU?

no you should be fine

[FLUFFYJELLO]

Also, wouldn't two 290's be too much for my PSU?

Unless you're running them both overclocked with some seriously tweaked voltages along with your CPU, then no, your PSU should be fine.

[Beefjus]

So...does anyone know if they'll fit and if they'll have problems with cooling?

 

On a side note, would overclocking my 8350 fix the bottlenecking issue (at least till I have enough money for a new board+cpu)?

[FLUFFYJELLO]

So...does anyone know if they'll fit and if they'll have problems with cooling?

 

On a side note, would overclocking my 8350 fix the bottlenecking issue (at least till I have enough money for a new board+cpu)?

It will lessen it to an extent. Benchmarks have shown the 8350 bottlenecking a single 970 at 1080p. The higher resolution you play at, the more GPU bound the game becomes, and there will be less of a performance difference between your 8350 and a comparably priced i5.

That being said, the 8350 isn't bad, for a few tasks like rendering machines and budget servers it performs admirably. Games nowadays only utilize a few cores, though. The exceptions being a few AAA titles like Battlefield and CoD, GTA performing pretty well, too. Because of this, the 8 threads on the 8350 aren't utilized and performance suffers. Even if games did utilize the threads available on the 8xxx series, just like with running multiple GPUs, there isn't 100% scaling. An FX8 doesn't perform exactly 33% better than an FX6 in games that use all the threads like BF and CoD.

 

So there are a few things you can do.

If you have adequate cooling, both for the processor, and the VRMs (the power delivery for your CPU on your motherboard) then get the best stable overclock you can on your 8350 to lessen the bottleneck you'll see. You will see better performance at 1440p and 4k due to your CPU becoming less of a factor at hose resolutions. If your plan is to game at those resolutions, then you'll be alright; not great mind you, but alright.

[Beefjus]

I might just switch to an i5 4690k then...it'll take longer for me to save up though, cause I'll need to get a new board too. haha! Thanks folks.

[kipper]

Your CPU will bottleneck the cards, just a heads up. Motherboard doesn't matter, even if they fit they won't perform like you're probably expecting.

And really, getting another 290 and upgrading that CPU to an i5/Xeon/i7 would benefit you much more.

At 4k????

[FLUFFYJELLO]

At 4k????

Read two posts up from yours.