Memory and SLI placement questions

[Sutenvulf]

Hello, bit of a newbie when it comes to things like this but here goes.

I've just bought a few parts for a recent build, however I'm not sure where I should place the RAM and Graphics Cards.

The motherboard is a Asus Rampage IV Extreme.

The RAM is quad channel, there are 8 slots on the mobo for ram and they are marked A1 A2 B1 B2 C1 C2 and D1 D2, 4 are red and 4 are black so I was assuming I should just put them in 4 of 1 colour but I thought I'd double check.

Secondly is the 2 Graphics Cards, there are 5 PCI-E rails, 2 are x16 and 3 are x8, I have had it running with one card in the first PCI-E x16 slot and the second in the next available slot which is x8 as the cards take up 3 slots each, should I move the second card along one for the x16 slot?

The reason I have them like this is it just leaves space for the 5th rail which I was going to put a 3rd card in, in the future, but moving the second card along will obscure the rail.

Thanks for any responses.

 

[manofchalk]

It should say in the mobo manual what the optimal configuration for your RAM is, but generally you fill all the slots of one colour, then fill the other colour.

Lemme guess, Sapphire 7970 Vapor-X cards?
Having the card run in an 8x slot is fine, there's no performance difference between 8x and 16x when it comes to graphics cards.

 

[Sutenvulf]

I see thanks for the response, got it in the manual, I had been though it previously but somehow missed the page with all the configurations on ><.

No it's 2 Gigabyte GTX 670 4gb, I was tempted to get 2 Asus 7970s but, the 3d perks among other things tipped me to the 670s.