Is SLI on a mATX board on air usually avoided?

[roninmedia]

I have been going through the process of building a computer for the first time and the motherboard is the final piece of the puzzle. I am seriously considering the Asus Maximus Gene-Z as the motherboard to go along with 1GB 460 Hawks OC in SLI to go along with an OC i5-2500k but I have been seeing some concerns about temperatures in general.

As far as cooling, the board would be in a mid-tower that has the dimensions of the full tower (Storm Sniper) with its default fans and the CPU would be cooled by a Corsair A70.

I do have a few ATX motherboard in mind if the mATX option isn't ideal for SLI including the MSI Z68A-GD65, ASUS P8Z68-V PRO, or ASRock Z68 EXTREME4 GEN3.


i5-2500K
Corsair A70
1GB 460GTX Hawk in SLI
2x4GB G. Skill Sniper DDR3 1600
Samsung Spinpoint 1TB
Asus 24x DVD-Drive
Cooler Master Storm Sniper
Seasonic X-750

 

[Arris]

Personally if I was building a computer without having any hardware to start with I would probably aim for a higher end single card rather than 2 older and now mid range 460 GTX cards. That way in the future you can pickup another higher performance card and then use SLI.

As for mATX and SLI, as long as the board supports it then there is no problem. You have stated its in a full tower so airflow won't be a problem. You might find some problems such as PCI 1x slot blocked/unusable when you have two double slot (two expansion slot height) PCI-E graphics cards in the motherboard.

 

[roninmedia]

Personally if I was building a computer without having any hardware to start with I would probably aim for a higher end single card rather than 2 older and now mid range 460 GTX cards. That way in the future you can pickup another higher performance card and then use SLI.

As for mATX and SLI, as long as the board supports it then there is no problem. You have stated its in a full tower so airflow won't be a problem. You might find some problems such as PCI 1x slot blocked/unusable when you have two double slot (two expansion slot height) PCI-E graphics cards in the motherboard.

My overall rationale for the two 460GTX was based on:

• I am currently in professional school and found a good deal on the two Hawks for a total of $210 and it helped fit things in my budget for now. Great performance now especially for that price.
• I don't play many of the very GPU intensive shooters such as Battlefield 3 coming out. Instead I play mainly RTS and RPG only on 1920x1080 (Skyrim, StarCraft II, Diablo 3)
• I intend to upgrade next Black Friday (2012) with the 7xxx or 6xx cards when they come out when I have been out working and making a lot more money than I am making now but keeping a lot of the same parts.

I've been informed about the slots on the Gene-Z that the only way to use the third slot to use an extender but I don't have that great of an audio set-up so something like a sound card is not needed.

 

[Arris]

That's a good deal on the 460s, I can understand why you have them in the build now
Waiting for the next gen cards before I consider upgrading from 2x5850 myself. What you will have to consider is the power/PSU requirements for 2 x 460 GTX if you haven't already. I'd try and get a 750w+ quality PSU (80plus bronze certified or higher).