Gigabyte SOC Force Z97 and Noctua Nh-D15

[Dreamcaster]

Hello.

I have the motherboard and the CPU cooler in the subject.

After buying the Noctua cooler - silly me - I checked their compatibility list and found out that using it with my motherboard would block out one of the PCI-E slots. Unfortunately the 16x one.

I have a new GeForce GTX 970 I want to use with this build. What if I used the card in any of the other slots?

Would it work? Performance reduced?

Thank you

[dmdilks]

How do you have it mounted? The fan should be pointing to the back of the computer.

[autotech]

1.1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16 (PCIEX16)
 * For optimum performance, if only one PCI Express graphics card is to be installed, be sure to install it in the PCIEX16 slot.

[Dreamcaster]

Thank you for your answers.
I regret buying all these expensive components without deeper knowledge.
I first assembled my first PC when I was 16, back in 1996. Things were much less complicated back then.
After wasting money on a custom water cooling loop which I was not able to mount (due to missing pices and bits the seller did not send me...NEVER buy second hand PC parts!), I settled for the best air cooling solution...just to find out I made another wrong choice.
Now, I would like to solve this issue without spending one more penny. Here is the list of components I bought so far:
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/mrP9yc

I am attaching 2 pictures to show you the orientation of the fan/radiators, the position of the RAM modules (Corsair Diamond Platinum, which unfortunately also create a hindrance to the Noctua cooler) and the GPU.

I trusted pcpartpicker when purchasing the components for my build and nothing about this incompatibility was mentioned.

So, I have attached the card to the 8x slot. Reading the mainboard manual I found out that all the PCI-E slots are 16x, but running - respectively - at 16x, 8x, 4x and 4x. When the 8x slot is populated, the 16x will run at 8x.When one of the 4x slots is populated, the 16x will run at 8x and the 8x will run at 4x.
I really do not understand what the multiply factor means (bandwidth?), but I hope that mounting the GPU card in the 8x slot won't dramatically affect its performance.

I am afraid it is the only choice I have...I don't want to buy AGAIN another component to cool down my CPU.

Another solution would be to unmount the RAM modules radiators and replace them with low profile ones, so I could change the orientation of the CPU radiator/fan...and try to use the 16x PCI-E slot...

Any suggestions?

[Dreamcaster]

attaching the third picture showing the position of the GTX 970 gpu card.

[autotech]

I don't think you are going to take that big a hit on performance.  But I am like you I like a 16x card running at 16.  Of course it all depends on CPU also.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rctaLgK5stA&list=UUXuqSBlHAE6Xw-yeJA0Tunw

[Dreamcaster]

Thanks for the replies.
I sent an email to Noctua and this is what they replied:

Dear Giorgio,

thank you very much for contacting Noctua and for choosing our product.

A PCIe 3.0 8x slot provides as much bandwidth as a PCIe 2.0 x16 slot and this is definitely more than enough for any current video card.

However, just these days I came across an article that covers this topic in detail, so it should be an interesting read for you as well:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GTX_980_PCI-Express_Scaling/

Kind regards,
Andreas Karner
Noctua support team

My system is up and running. I will now test the GPU and try to compare my benchmark results with other users' running the same or similar setup.

It is unfortunate I can't use the 16x slot: it would be better if the fastest PIC-E slot were the one at the bottom of the card, far from the cpu cooler.

[autotech]

interesting to say the least.  But I am a spaz about my computer stuff I have a large Zalman cooler in my closet I have never used just because of my video card.