Having issues with upgrading to dual GPUs level 17

[cAtAstrophIc_failur3]

Hey all,

I have been playing PC Building Simulator for about a week now. I am at level 17 and have gotten nothing but 5 stars on all my jobs but 2, so I know my way around the game quite well so far.

I am currently having an issue with a customer pc upgrade. The request is coming from Colin with the e-mail address [e-mail]

Here is his parts list:
-Corsair Carbide Series 275R (White) case
-Gigabyte GA-B250M-Gaming 5
-GTX 1060 GAMING- 6G

He's requesting an AIO COoler which I have installed, but he wants a grpahics card upgrade, AND a dual GPU setup. The motherboard is a micro ATX board, and I have tried multiple configurations to get dual cards installed on the board, and as soon as I install a card, it automatically says that every other card is incompatible.

I tried swaping out the motherboard for a standard ATX board, but when I go to my inventory to install it, I click on the new board and it doesn't do anything. In the PC parts inventory, his original board has a sticky note on it saying it is his property, indicating I can't switch it out for a bigger board.

Am I missing something here? How can I upgrade his current card AND install dual GPUs? Any ideas?

[rog55]

that mobo will take dual gpus but only in crossfire config. also no 1060's can be dual so use search for crossfire and pick from the list that you can afford

[cAtAstrophIc_failur3]

Ok, thanks for the tip. I didn't see it was crossfire only. Now, the only issue I am having is that the physical space isn't allowing me to put them together. I put one in on the side of the case and run it with a ribbon cable, and the second card won't go in unless that card comes out. I tried both ways and now physically they won't fit?

[BonPadre]

I tried in free build, and indeed it's a bit of a hassle with that mobo.

Try the Vega 56, it fits dual in that mobo, without colliding.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1804928273

[cAtAstrophIc_failur3]

Thank you, my friend! Worked perfectly with a 5 star review!

I build a lot of systems in life, and hardly ever get requests for Radeaon or Vega cards. So I am not as up to speed on them as the Nvidia cards.

Thanks so much for the help!

[🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊]

Originally posted by RockWood:

Thank you, my friend! Worked perfectly with a 5 star review!

I build a lot of systems in life, and hardly ever get requests for Radeaon or Vega cards. So I am not as up to speed on them as the Nvidia cards.

Thanks so much for the help!

Due to your comment, I thought I might share a little info for you. The issue stems from the physical pins in the pci-express sockets, and Nvidia's requirements. The reason some motherboards can do crossfire but not SLI is that those boards are typically low-end / cheap / budget boards. As such they are normally 16x for the first slot, and only physically 16x, but only have pins in the slots to connect electrically at PCI-Express 4x in the second slot. Nvidia cards can not be used in SLI in these motherboards because Nvidia requires a minimum of 8x electrically and physically on both slots or we can't use SLI. Where as AMD only requires 4x minimum. Mid-range boards will usually allow us to do 16x on one slot, or 8x+8x using two slots so we can use SLI. If you see one of these boards it should say that it supports SLI.

All "Desktop" class boards fall in to 2 categories, either 16+4, or 16/8+8.
Higher end HEDT class boards (AMD Threadripper and Intel X299) can commonly do configurations like 16+16+4 (Intel) and 16+8+16+8 (AMD Threadripper) for expansion cards.

[cAtAstrophIc_failur3]

Thanks for the info. Yea, I only use higher end boards for the majority of my builds. I myself have Threadripper. Got the 1950x on launch day, and am use to only the higher end setups. Thanks for the info! Learn something new everyday I suppose!

[🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊]

Originally posted by RockWood:

Thanks for the info. Yea, I only use higher end boards for the majority of my builds. I myself have Threadripper. Got the 1950x on launch day, and am use to only the higher end setups. Thanks for the info! Learn something new everyday I suppose!

I updated my post for a little more clarity. But yeah. Now that you know about the 8x requirement for nvidia, you can go look at the specifications of some of these motherboards in real life on the manufacturer's websites and see where some boards say "16/4" for their PCI-Express slots. Also sometimes on websites like Newegg, they have photos of the boards and if you look at the back side you can clearly see the second slot in budget boards only have 1/4 of the metal pins vs the 16x slot, so it's pretty obvious that it's a 4x slot, even though it looks (Physically) like a 16x slot if you view the board from the top side.

[Jackson]

@Aquafawks: Do you know what the deal is with the NZXT x390 boards? They're quite high end it seems but only support Crossfire. At level 24 I only have three 390 boards available and those are the most expensive. Do you know of another reason why NZXT would not support SLI?

[🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊]

Originally posted by Jack:

@Aquafawks: Do you know what the deal is with the NZXT x390 boards? They're quite high end it seems but only support Crossfire. At level 24 I only have three 390 boards available and those are the most expensive. Do you know of another reason why NZXT would not support SLI?

I think you are referring to the NZXT N7 Z390 motherboard, yes? There is no "X390" motherboard in game or in real life. If so, I went to look at the manufacturer's specification page (Over here if you want to see yourself: https://www.nzxt.com/products/n7-z390-matte-white ), and apparently it actually does -NOT- support Nvidia SLI, even though it can do 8+8 for PCI-Express slots. I actually was unaware that any board vendors could do this.. I had assumed all 8+8 motherboards could do SLI. So.. apparently that is a thing now and that is not an error. It actually doesn't support SLI IRL, so it's correct in PCBS. Learn something new every day.

[Jackson]

Indeed. Thanks! I prefer AMD cards personally, but I can't see why you wouldn't want to support Nvidia SLI. They're kinda the big boys :) Particularly on an Intel board...

[cAtAstrophIc_failur3]

The technology train never stops, that's for sure. Being a system builder on the side, it is a nightmare trying to keep up with everything,