Maximus V Extreme SLI distance between GPUs

[macforth]

I will ask here as all I get is a data base error in the ROG forums.

The manual that comes with this board seems to say that if running two GPU's, that the first card should be in the first slot, but the second should be in slot 2B.
There are 4 classic red PCIe slots............but there is also a black one between the 2nd and the 3rd which they call 2B
If this is the case then the normal distance for SLI being two slots, now becomes 2 1/2?

Anyone with this motherboard encountered this yet?

 

[MacGyverSG1]

It looks like the distance between x16/x8_1 and x8_2B is 3 slots. The board comes with SLI bridges that look longer than normal ones. It gives extra room between them for better cooling.

 

[macforth]

The reason why I mentioned it, I am in the throws of putting together a new WC system, using the Asus M5E and two GTX690 WC. The 690's are EVGA, and as I couldn't buy hydro coppers, I have to go with after market water blocks. So the question arose in my mind as to how to connect these water wise......depending on the choice of water blocks of course.....which I have yet to purchase.
I started by picking up this unusual slot requirement when using two GPU's only in the manual.
The MB is described as an extended ATX. A member (NFC) posted a site giving the specifics of the ATX motherboard in another thread, so I did a bit of reading.
http://www.formfactors.org/developer\specs\atx2_2.pdf
From that I can see that there is a set distance between PCI(e) cards. It is given as .800 inches. Therefore the distance between the two specified slots on The Asus MVE is 2.4 inches. This equates to 60.96.....call it 61 mm.
That helps if the final choice of water connections is this sort of connection http://www.frozencpu.com/products/1..._Set_-_Matte_Black_BSLI-1.html?tl=g30c101s873
Clearly from these descriptions the spacing is ATX triple slot.

 

[danjw]

I just asked this same question on the ROG boards this morning. Still no response there. The thing that gets me is there are 4 PCIe disable switches on the board, but 5 16x slots. The manual tells you to use different slots for dual from triple and quadruple SLI. The red ones only for the last two, but the first uses the first red and the one 16x black one. To make maters worse I was watching a YouTube review earlier that said the black slots were PCIe 2.0 only. So now I am really confused.

Ok, looking at the manual, I saw this note: "PCIe 3.0/2.0_x8_2B slot will be disabled when PCIe 3.0/2.0_x16_2A, PCIe 3.0/2.0_x8_3, PCIe 3.0/2.0_x8_4 slots are occupied. So, it seems like the black slot is disabled when using Triple and Quad you can't use the 2B slot, but with just two cards it is ideal since those are both on the CPU. Not sure if they are moving those lanes to one of the other slots or not, but they aren't going to work in that case. Asus could certainly made this clearer in the manual.

 

[danjw]

Just a verification from Asus on this: http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?19892-Maximus-5-Extreme-with-2x-680-DC2s