Are GPU's being too large for cases a common problem?

E

Eiolon

Gawd
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Apr 6, 2005
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I'm set on getting the COOLER MASTER Centurion 590 case but I'm concerned that with video cards getting so large these days that it won't fit. Is this a common problem and something I should be concerned with? I am waiting for the next round of GPU's before purchasing one so I can't exactly measure dimensions.
 
Naw...unless you got a really small case, or opted for an unusually large GPU (I'm looking at you 4850x2), you should be fine.
 
Seems to be a common problem, I recently purchased a Lian Li K7B and I fit my gtx 285 in there easily but there was about an inch left between the hard drive cage and the card. I can't imagine that cards can get much bigger.
 
Common problem with older cases. New cases don't have the issue. My current Apevia X-Jupiter fits both of my HD4870s with like 5-6 inches to spare between the powercable and the drive cage. I could fit Tri-SLI with GTX280s in there without batting an eye.
 
The case doesn't even need to be old to be a problem. Antec has many current cases that don't fit full length cards. FWIW, all 3 Centurion cases I have fit full length cards fine, but I don't have a 590.
 
TWolf79 said:
Seems to be a common problem, I recently purchased a Lian Li K7B and I fit my gtx 285 in there easily but there was about an inch left between the hard drive cage and the card. I can't imagine that cards can get much bigger.
Click to expand...

Luckily, the 10.5" length (8800 GTX -> GTX 285, 4870 X2) is just about the max for most video cards.

But the Sapphire 4850X2 is 1/2" longer.
 
I remember when the 8800gtx came out. I worked at PCclub and almost all of them came back because they wouldn't fit in the customer's case.
 
The Centurion 590 has plenty of room for large video cards. I wouldn't worry about any clearance issues.
 
One problem a lot of cases have for vid fitment is the hard drive cage.
If the drives are oriented back and forth and can't be rotated perpendicular, the only solution is to stagger the vid with the drives.
My setup from top to bottom is WD 640, GTX260, and Hitachi 250.
The drives overhang the video card by about 3/4 inch.
 
Its not usually a problem with new mid tower cases today. The only time I had an issue was trying to fit an 8800 GTX (when they first came out) in the Antec mid tower I bought in 2003. They just didn't allow for long graphics cards when it was designed - they're weren't any. The PCB of the 8800 GTX was wedged against the hard driver cage - just barely fit. Looking at the case you're getting I don't think you'll have an issue - the various cages on it are a good inch shorter than on my old Antec case.
 
My newer case has a removeable hard drive cage. The default is having the drive sideways at the bottom front of the case but I can remove it to give gpu's extra room if I need too.
 
my 9800gtx+ just came 2-3mm close by touching the HDD cage (literally) .. was a very tight fit. My case is a raidmax smilodon by the way!
 
I've only really seen this being a problem on newer cases as they all seem to have hard drive cages at the bottom. I have a couple mid/full towers from around 2000-2002 and they can all fit full length pci cards, so all the modern video cards have tons of room. I'm not quite sure why most new cases seem to have this short stubby appearance with everything crammed in the bottom together.
 
It still is a pain. Case manufacturers hopefully are thinking of all the crap we stuff into these things for future models. Truthfully I am surprised by overall lack of organization and forethought that manufacturers use when designing cases in general, airflow, cable management, gpu placement, psu placement. etc.
 
My 4870x2 barely fits in my C5, 10.5". When I put it in I had to move my two hard drives to the bottom two racks on my hard drive cage. Connecting the 8 pin was a pain since there was so little room between the drive racks and the card.

If you get a 4870x2, make sure you put in some extra fans to help move the air in/out better. I moved from my 1950 pro, which exhausted inside the case, to my HIS 4870x2 and warmed up my case temps, according to my mb temp, 5-10*C. I don't have any temp problems after playing hours of gaming though. So you'll be ok, just be forewarned.
 
mastrdrver said:
My 4870x2 barely fits in my C5, 10.5". When I put it in I had to move my two hard drives to the bottom two racks on my hard drive cage. Connecting the 8 pin was a pain since there was so little room between the drive racks and the card.

If you get a 4870x2, make sure you put in some extra fans to help move the air in/out better. I moved from my 1950 pro, which exhausted inside the case, to my HIS 4870x2 and warmed up my case temps, according to my mb temp, 5-10*C. I don't have any temp problems after playing hours of gaming though. So you'll be ok, just be forewarned.
Click to expand...

FYI, the Centurion 590 is larger than the Centurion 5 and has a completely different layout.
 
Only if highend videocards weren't beyond 9", then I could fit it in my little cube case with no problem.
 
Zero82z said:
FYI, the Centurion 590 is larger than the Centurion 5 and has a completely different layout.
Click to expand...

Its not much different. The p/s is at the bottom moving the card location up and the 590 is just over an inch deeper giving more room. Its not exact, but its close enough that I think it can hold a 4870x2 sized card with a little more room to work than I have.
 
Is cooling the reason behind such huge cards? Or is it the internal components themselves?
 
Jon55 said:
Is cooling the reason behind such huge cards? Or is it the internal components themselves?
Click to expand...
probably a little bit of both depending on the card. funny how the 8800gts 512 got a little bigger when it became the 9800gtx but stayed the same as the 9800gtx+ even though it went to 55nm. of course now its its much smaller as the gts250.
 
I have an Antec Solo so no GTX 260/280 length cards for me :( I miss the days when you could fit a high end GPU (9700 Pro) on a normal sized PCB.
 
cannondale06 said:
probably a little bit of both depending on the card. funny how the 8800gts 512 got a little bigger when it became the 9800gtx but stayed the same as the 9800gtx+ even though it went to 55nm. of course now its its much smaller as the gts250.
Click to expand...
Dropping to 55nm would have nothing to do with the size of a card. A cpu manufacturered on 55nm, can be put in the same package as one manufactuered at 65 or whatever they were at before. The physical limitation for the main chip is going to be the pints, and since both GPU's were very similar, I imagine they needed to have the same number of pins on the bottom (as in 100's). Space for those pins is the real issue. If they are using an IHS, a larger package also allows for a larger one, means more thermal capacity.

Card size is giong to depend on the rest of the components on the card that they need in order to support the GPU. Bridge chips, regulators, filtering, etc.
 
You ATX people get concerned over long cards, but us SFF users have no such problems :D
 
j3ff86 said:
I have an Antec Solo so no GTX 260/280 length cards for me :( I miss the days when you could fit a high end GPU (9700 Pro) on a normal sized PCB.
Click to expand...

I put a 260 in my Solo. I had to cut the HDD cage with a dremmel, so now it holds 3 drives instead of 4.
 
I have a problem with my Antec P182 (not a small case by any means!) and my Radeon HD3870x2 (such a large card it makes the original XBOX designers look like geniuses). The card covers 4 of the 6 SATA ports on my motherboard (ASUS P5K-E). I've managed to use 2 of the 4 that are covered by using the right angled connectors on the board, but the other 2 are not accessible. Thankfully I only use 4 of the 6 connectors, so I'm not missing out.
 
amp88 said:
I have a problem with my Antec P182 (not a small case by any means!) and my Radeon HD3870x2 (such a large card it makes the original XBOX designers look like geniuses). The card covers 4 of the 6 SATA ports on my motherboard (ASUS P5K-E). I've managed to use 2 of the 4 that are covered by using the right angled connectors on the board, but the other 2 are not accessible. Thankfully I only use 4 of the 6 connectors, so I'm not missing out.
Click to expand...

Ya, that sucks but it is a motherboard design flaw. not the case. I don't know why some motherboards do this either, but this sis why many are starting to put the sata connectors off to the side instead of pointing strait up.
 
My case is smaller (less depth) than average and my 8800GTS and GTX260 fit OK, although I had to check beforehand.

I have an Antec NSK4400. My main PC is installed in a ventilated cavity in a custom desk in my home office which was built years-ago to baby-AT depth spec so I'm limited to about 16" of case depth if I want to be able to install it properly. This leaves me very little choice in cases. Of course I also don't have it stuffed with 6 HDs or anything either, the space in front of the GPU has no drive installed.

Luckily the layout of my P5B-E also has no deal killers near the GPU...
 
Sounds re-assuring. I think I'll go ahead and get the case and hope for the best.
 
I didn't have SATA connectors that bent the right way to make use of my ports on the Asus P5E-VM HDMI mobo, so I just cut into the jacket of the connector with a V on one side and a straight cut on the other, and bent the sata connector over. Worked but I think a new mobo might be in order soon instead.
 
I've never had any issue with my cards fitting in any of my cases. My more recent configs have been:

Geforce 256 and Geforce 4400 in a standard Gateway tower
5900 XT in an HP Media case
6800 GT in a Dell XPS case
7800 GT SLI and 7900 GTX SLI in a Thermaltake Tsunami (the end of the cards were just millimeters away from a hard drive if I remember correctly; any longer and it wouldn't have fit)
8800 GTX SLI in a Thermaltake Armor
4870 X2 CrossfireX in a Gigabyte 3D Mercury

I've probably avoided problems with my recent builds by fitting them in larger cases. The only tight fit I remember was with the Dell XPS and the 6800 GT. The card itself fit perfectly well, but I remember having to do some creative movement of PCI cards when I installed an Artic Chill cooler.
 
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