Are there any Intel m/bs with two x1 slots between the CPU and the x16 slot?

There are quite a few motherboards these days with a x1 slot on the CPU side of the x16 slot. With coolers growing ever larger - and I'm thinking in particular of the Nofen - are there any motherboards with two PCIe x1 slots between the CPU and the x16 slot?

Bonus points if it's a mATX board

What for?

If they have 4 PCI-E x16 slots in mATX format, what's the difference?

Just get the RIV Gene and use the second slot if you want to go that route. Or any number of x79 mATX boards. And I think completely passive coolers like the Nofen are useless, just get the NH-D14 and call it a day. They may be getting larger, but almost all tower coolers will not interfere with the first PCI-E x16 slot.

I've found the ECS A785GM-AD3. Pity it's an AMD board with no USB 3, but I could fit a USB 3 card in the second PCIe x1 slot.

Quartz, is there a specific socket you're looking for, or any Intel socket in general?

I would prefer Intel 1155 or 2011 because the CPUs use much less power. That's important when you're limited to 450-500W, which is the limit for silent PSUs. At a pinch, there's the Gigabyte X79-UD5, but that has the second full x16 slot as the 5th slot, not the 3rd. That would cause problems if I wanted to fit a Colorful silent GTX 680: the secondary heatsink will impede a Nofen heatsink the standard way, and might have difficulty fitting inside even an EATX case the other. I was thinking of mounting everything vertically inside something like a Silverstone FT-02 - I would do away with the three fans at the bottom. Blissful silence through convection cooling for the win!

Your obsession with a fanless system is going too far IMO. 500-600 RPM fans are silent, you will never hear them unless you put your ear right up to them.

Even the fanless PSUs recommend having case fans to generate some airflow for the PSU. Convection cooling is terribly inefficient.

http://www.xpcpro.com/asrock-h77m-m...77-usb-3.0-onboard-graphics-cpu-required.html

There aren't any slots were you want them on this one, but uts mATX and there is a lot of space around the CPU.
Btw, you should really have a fan somewhere because if you don't expel the warm air you'll have a BBQ case in no time.

username-taken said:

Btw, you should really have a fan somewhere because if you don't expel the warm air you'll have a BBQ case in no time.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the link: I've bookmarked it, but you are mistaken about the fan: as long as you can maintain a sufficient throughput of air, which means an ingress below the heat sources and an egress above them, and a sufficient cooling area, then there shouldn't be a problem. Way back, PCs used to be fanless.

I'm not wedded on fanlessness, though; I just like quiet.

Way back CPUs used to have a TDP of like 5W. Invest in some PWM fans and something like this and have every fan on your computer throttle down when idle and only pick up when demanded.

I think pretty much EVERY passively cooled PC component assumes at least SOMETHING in the case will be moving air around so if you go and stick every single passively cooled device in the same case with 0 fans, things are gonna get hot quick. I assume since you're looking at that passively cooled 680 that this is more than just a web browsing machine and you're sorely mistaken if you honestly believe you can cram 250-300W worth of heat sources in something the size of a PC case and have 100% convection keep said heat sources at temperatures appropriate for computer components.