Order of my graphic cards (crossfire)

[amputate]

Ok so,

I have 1 ATI 6990 and 1 ATI 6970 in crossfire atm (yesh yesh clocked everything correctly and such, it works perfectly fine, that's not my question)
The 6990 is plugged on the 1st slot and my 6970 in the 2nd (meaning the 6990 is the one sending out signals)
But is it possible to plug the 6970 in the 1st slot and still get the same performance?

I'm asking this because I don't like the fact that my 2 cards are literally touching each other.
the 6990 has rubber thingies that could keep them at a certain distance from each other but they are at the top of the card (meaning they are useless).
Here are pictures to help clarify. (srry in advance for quality, used my phone)

Cards Touching:



Rubber Things on the 6990:


Case Photo:

 

[amputate]

I put my 6970 in the lowest PCI slot on my mobo (still x8 though) which leaves a pretty big gap between the 2 cards.
All seems to work fine, only noticed a very slight framerate loss

 

[amputate]

Gigabyte 890FXA-UD5 (rev 2.0)
http://be.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3417#ov

 

[ilysaml]

you have 2 PCIe 2.0 rated at X16 and 1 Rated at X8, why don't you put the HD 6990 on the X16 lane and the HD 6970 in the X8 slot and there should be a enough space between cards

 

[ilysaml]

^
I think that's kinda what the OP did,

put my 6970 in the lowest PCI slot on my mobo (still x8 though)

Though, now that u mention it, he could have place it onto the x4 slot.

i was so Clear, 1 in PCIe X16 and 1 in X8, never mentioned X4 and i guess a guy with this build can differentiate between X4 and X8
and if he did put one in the X16 and another one in X8 he shouldn't have such a space between cards.
and what do you understand from the "lowest PCI" ? X8 or X4 ?

 

[ilysaml]

i don't know why doesn't Gigabyte make PCIe X16 such as Slot 1, 3 or slot 1, 4 like some vendors do

 

[ilysaml]

that's what i'm pointing to

 

[amputate]

ok so what I did was I put the 6990 in the 16x slot located at the far right (see picture 2 post above) and the 6970 in the 8x slot located on the far left.
My PCI slots go (from left to right) x8-x4-x16-x16

I said i put the 6970 in the lowest slot because when the mobo is in the computer then the far left side will be the lower side. so the far left slot is the lowest one.
Just to clear up some confusion

the reason I made this thread was because I ran furmark for a bit with bolth cards in touching x16 slots, and after less then 15minutes the 6990 was reaching 105c and still climbing.
At that point I obviously panicked and started looking for ways to fix this.
The way it's currently set up the 6990 peaks at 90c full load and about ~65c idle