eVGA x58 classified 3 vs 4-way sli classified

[slisgrinder]

As the subjects states, I am in the market for a new mobo and was wondering the pros and cons between the two. Also I have the following audio card:

Auzentech, Inc. X-Fi Home Theater HD : World First soundcards for Music, HTPC, and Gaming.

Can I simply pop it into any of the PCIe x16 slots because with either of the two mobos the classified3 has a PCIe x1 slot but is obstructed by the northbridge fan and the 4-way sli doesn't have a PCIe x1.


Thanks for your help...

Link to Classified3:
EVGA | Products

Link to 4-Way Classified:
EVGA | Products

[SugarJ]

Either board is an excellent overclocker. If you are going to SLI GTX470's or GTX480's, I'd go with the 4 way as it has an extra power plug on the mobo to supply more juice to the PCI-E slots. There's been some issues with the 3 way and multiple Fermi's melting the 24 pin connection from drawing too much current.

As for your sound card, my Xonar DX is sitting in one of my x16 slots as I type. The slots are all the same electrically, and you can use a x1 card in any PCI-E slot.

[slisgrinder]

Alright, no problem. Thanks for the info. I probably won't be going 4-way since my current rig just died from a certain series of unfortunate events. So I have a salvageable 8800 ultra from the two I had, 4 hdds 2x 1gb of ddr2 memory plus 2x 2gb of ddr2 memory as well as the Athlon x2 64 6000+ and its zalman cooler and a 1kW Enermax Galaxy and my Haf932. Once I get the new mobo, I would need the i7 920 and a tripple channel ddr3 memory. Because this is a replacement for some of my current hardware I will go for the classified3 mobo. Then later in the coming years i will build a proper rig... I can't believe everything was caused by a stupid mistake... My gfx card had a cracked fan so I took of the zalman cooler and left it on the computer until I could get my new cooler. apparently after I moved to a new place, I found that card in the drawer. I then got the cooler in the mail so I put it on and stuck it back into the comp. When I booted it up I got instant instability. I then started to smell something burning... turns out that my other gfx card's fan had melted off and the mobo was intensely hot. I took everything out and found out that the card I found in the drawer had a capacitor ripped off... That caused the instability, driver issues and the unknown case of the other gfx card. I moved the new cooler from the faulty card onto the second card and now this card needs fixing. Hopefully there was no permanent damage to the card but my mobo is totally out of commission and I am not going to risk getting my 3.5 TB worth of data lost in a preventative accident...