The Inquirer says "Gainward makes dual SLI water cooled 6800 Ultras"
 

MMMMMMM SEXY

http://theinquirer.net/images/articles/gwsli1.jpg

Click anything to go to article.

What concerns me is that I know the reason that the SLI connector is bundled with the Motherboard and NOT with the cards is that different motherboard manufacturers use slightly different measuremetns for the space between the PCIe slots. It is also for this reason that the 'reference' nvidia SLI connector is a cable, and not a hard PCB like the ones that come with motherboards.

I wonder which motherboard this cooler has been designed to fit, and what other ones share the same measurements.

How do they make different spacing between the PCI-E slots when the ATX standard dictates the spacing between PCI, AGP, and PCI-E slots on the back of the computer...

I believe you are wrong.

He is not wrong. It's a pretty wild world out there. The boards from major 3 makers, namely Asus, MSI & Gigabyte all have different spacing between the two PEG (pci-e graphics) slots. It's a deviation from the standard but they are different manufacturers that put different stuff at different places on the motherboards they produce. After all a dual PEG motherboard is a deviation by itself.

Then how do the IO plates on the back of the computer line up with the back of a case?

Are those aluminum? Has anyone not learned anything about corrosion yet? I don't get the choice of materials.

Well the IO plates were always customized depending on the board layout so I don't see how that may be a problems. Even when you buy a OEM board that comes in antistatic bag with no cd's or cables IO plate is always included.
If you're thinking of slots for expansion cards that isn't a problem either. Spacing might be different between the manufacturers but the board are still made to fit in any computer case. One board might have card A going where the AGP slot would usually be and card be one or maybe two slots lower, if you're looking at the back of the case.

So far both the MSI board and the Asus board appear to have the same distance between cards, as far as I can tell... The Gainward block was demonstrated on an Asus board.

Asus
MSI
Gigabyte
DFI

So far, only the asus has 2 slots in between the PCI-E slots, so I guess that is why they used it, but I dont see why this thing cant be made to fit other motherboards. When you were saying small differences in spacing, I thought you meant that the distance between the PCI-E slots could vary by minute amounts, even if there are the same number of empty slots between them.

A few examples:
DFI SLi board:
http://www.pcperspective.com/images/news/dfisli_top.jpg

MSI board
http://www.msicomputer.com/product/mb_image/MS-7100.jpg

Gygabyte
http://images10.newegg.com/productim...128-269-02.JPG

Asus
http://images10.newegg.com/productim...131-517-02.JPG

Looks a little bit different to me. I do wear glasses though. :cool:

Only the asus has two expansion slots in between the PCI-E slots. All the others have one.

I see what you mean, and yes that would be really weird. I'm sure they can build a block to fit other boards too. In fact I'll be surprised if they don't since we haven't heard anything about "exclusive super-out-of-this-world' Asus-Gainward-Innovatek mega cool combo". Bah. We'll see.

i would imagine a copper block would be to heavy...

not to mention more expensive to produce and not really all that major a concern for the average end user.

In the picture on the Inquirer site, it is the Asus board that they are using (as the SLI connector clearly says Asus on it) so does that mean that this solution is incompatable with the MSI, Gigabyte, and DFI boards?

Looks like it can't fit the other boards. The bolts only lineup with the Asus configuration. Doesn't look like it can be adjusted at all.

Innov blocks, arent they?

looks like it

http://www.webshop-innovatek.de/images/nv4091_517.jpg

Interesting, I wonder if you mount it section by section on the videocards.