air flow

row

Senior member
May 28, 2013
314
0
71
pc in question is the sabertooth in sig below.

case cooling is accomplished by two phantek ph-f140hp's intake and one ph-f140hp exhaust, h100i is push/pull using four corsair high performance sp120's.

msi kombuster 3.3.0 running gpu core burner v2 (furry donut) sli for one hour records the max temp for gpu1 @ 88 deg c, gpu2 @ 76 deg c.

in game i've never noticed gpu1 over 80 deg c (gpu2 lags 10 to 12 deg c behind).

the sabertooth pcie layout is:
x1 #1 - creative zxr (top of mb)
x16 #1 - 780 ti (gpu #1)
x1 #2 - empty
x16 #2 - 780 ti (gpu #2)
x1 #3 - empty (but covered by video card)
x16 #3 - empty (bottom of mb)

i would like to free up space around gpu #1 by moving the zxr to the bottom x16 slot (#3). the question is does populating the 3rd x16 slot with a sound card lower the other two to x4 (they currently run at 3.0 x8)?

thanks for any help!
 

Deders

Platinum Member
Oct 14, 2012
2,401
1
91
If this is the sabertooth in question then according to the specs the 1st 2 PCIe slots are 3.0 whilst all the others are 2.0.


  • Expansion Slots2 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (x16 or dual x8) *2
    1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (x4 mode, black) *3
    3 x PCIe 2.0 x1
*2: PCIe 3.0 speed is supported by Intel® 3rd generation Core™ processors.

*3: The PCIe 2.0 x16 slot shares bandwidth with PCIe 2.0 x1_1 slot, PCIe 2.0 x1_2 slot and PCIe 2.0 x1_3 slot. The PCIe 2.0 x16 slot default setting is in x1 mode.

So it shouldn't affect the 3.0 slots. You may even find a setting in the bios to turn it get it to run in 4x mode instead of 1x.
 

row

Senior member
May 28, 2013
314
0
71
yes it is, thanks for your help, question answered!