Boards that use the FIRST PCI-E slot in the case.

[Chiropteran]

Title might not be clear enough because I have no idea what the correct way to phrase it is, so I'll tell a story.

You take out your shiny new board, and put it in your case. The first PCI-E slot is an X16 slot, and you put your video card in it. But when you put the card into the slot in your motherboard, it doesn't actually use the first slot cut out of the case, it uses the second slot. The first slot is in front of a VRM or something and there is no slot on the motherboard in this position.

This seems to be the case with nearly every ATX board/case combo I have used in the last 6 years. The first slot on the motherboard is unusable. Do ANY motherboards have the slots positioned high enough to allow usage from the first slot on? Is there a name for this feature, so I know what to look for in a board if I want one designed this way?

Or another way of asking, is there any combination of reasonably priced commodity motherboard & case that allows for a full 8 usable PCI-E slots such that you can position X16 cards in slots 1, 3, and 7?

Fake edit: actually did some quick browsing on newegg and I see what appears to be several boards with PCI-E X1 slots available for the first slot, but I didn't see any with a X16 slot positioned there. Do they exist?

 

[bononos]

Are you looking for 3 x16 slots or just 3 full size pci-e slots? Mbs with 3 full size pci-e slots should be common enough given tri-sli rigs, they may not all run at x16x16x16 but something like x16x16x8.

The pci-e x1 as the first slot is a good idea since it can be used by a shorter/smaller card for neatness and airflow instead of squeezing between double slot cards in a sli setup.

Edit- Not sure if z68 chipsets support 3 way sli/xfire. Asrock's Z68 Extreme7 Gen3 does but it also uses the nf200 chip.
http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=Z68 Extreme7 Gen3&cat=Specifications

 

[Chiropteran]

Are you looking for 3 x16 slots or just 3 full size pci-e slots?

For one, I am just curious if any boards use the first possible position for an X16 slot. Seems like none do.

If some do, I'd be interested in a board with a setup like follows:

X16, any, any, x16, any, any, x16, any/empty (room for a 2 slot card to hang over)

That is, 3 full sized PCI-E slots spread out with 2 slots between each. You need 8 slots for this though, and you can't get 8 slots unless you use the first possible slot, thus the original question.

 

[bononos]

I edited my post above after your reply- see the Asrock link. There should be other 3 way sli mbs from Asus and others.

 

[Chiropteran]

I edited my post above after your reply- see the Asrock link. There should be other 3 way sli mbs from Asus and others.

Yeah the asrock site is down but I think I know what you are linking to. I have no problem finding boards with multiple X16 slots, it's the spacing that is key. 2 spaces between each full size PCI-E slot.

For example, I have a sabertooth 990fx.

It has:

X16
X1
X16
X16
PCI
X16

6 slots total, 4 of which are X16.

However, if I put a cards in, it looks like this-

X16 VIDEO CARD
X1 CARD SECOND SLOT
X16 <--- Nice gap for air to flow between the cards
X16 VIDEO CARD
PCI CARD SECOND SLOT
<----------------> No gap, so no airflow, last card tends to overheat
X16 VIDEO CARD
Nil CARD SECOND SLOT


In a perfect world, I'd like to see a motherboard setup like this:

X16 VIDEO CARD
X1 SECOND CARD SLOT
X1 (empty gap, allows airflow)
X16 VIDEO CARD
X1 SECOND CARD SLOT
X1 (empty gap, allows airflow)
X16 VIDEO CARD
PCI SECOND CARD SLOT

But this requires a total of 8 slots.


From wikipedia-

XL-ATX
The name "XL-ATX" has been used by at least two companies in different ways. In September 2009, EVGA Corporation had already released a 13.5" wide by 10.3" deep "XL-ATX" motherboard as its EVGA X58 Classified 4-Way SLI.[5] In Q2/2010 Gigabyte launched another XL-ATX Mainboard with model number GA-X58A-UD9.
In April 2010, Gigabyte Technology announced its 12.8" wide by 9.6" deep GA-890FXA-UD7 motherboard that allowed all seven slots to be moved downward by one slot position. The added length could have allowed placement of up to eight expansion slots, but the top slot position is vacant on this particular model.
Although these boards have room for additional expansion slots (9 and 8 total, respectively), all three provide only 7 expansion connectors; the topmost positions are left vacant to provide more room for the CPU, chipset, and associated cooling.

So, 8 slots in the configuration I want is theoretically possible with an "XL-ATX" board. However, no manufacturer has created such a board to date.

 

[Chiropteran]

I think I answered my own question, using a board like this-

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813130274

and a case such as
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811147053

I can fit 3 doubleslot video cards with an extra empty slot gap between each. The bottom card will hang below the motherboard but using the 10 expansion slot case it should fully support this sort of build.

 

[bononos]

You should have said you wanted full size pci-e slot in positions 1,4,7 so there will be an air gap between double slot video cards.

 

[Chiropteran]

You should have said you wanted full size pci-e slot in positions 1,4,7 so there will be an air gap between double slot video cards.

Yeah, I had a typo. Oops.

Anyway, other than the 890FX chipset MSI board, are there any good suggestions? The MSI might work, but are there any boards using intel chipsets? Or 9 series AMD chipsets?