Crossfired 6850s, 2nd one runs hotter/higher usage

[prognosis]

I have a question.

I have 2 IceQX Radeon 6850's and it is running 10 degrees hotter (idle) and as the 1st card is running at 0% the second card is running at 10%-15% at idle. My question is, are they supposed to run like that? It's my first time using two cards and i'm not too knowledgeable in them.

My other parts are a i5 2500k (4.3 ghz), 2x 4g gskill ddr3 ram, 850w Corsair PSU, Gigabyte z68 UD3H-B3 Motherboard.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

normally the top card will run a little hotter as heat rises and the heat from the bottom card rises to heat up the top card. Disable windows aero and you will notice the card will not run 10-15% at idle anymore. Windows aero uses the hardware accelleration of your video card and doesnt use crossfire, thats why your seeing a little gpu useageg at "idle". Its all normal. I am interested as to weather or not you see microstuttering with that setup???

 

[festerovic]

I have a CF 6850 setup, I don't experience microstuttering. I have 2600k and p67 though I doubt it makes a difference.

 

[prognosis]

I get awesome frames of BF2 now except now I get a flashing black screen every so often.

Also, it's not my top card that is running hotter. It's my bottom card (the second one).

 

[megamanx00]

The top video card will generally run hotter than the bottom card. What case do you have?

 

[prognosis]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112238

There is plenty of room in my case. there's inch between the cards and about 3 inches between my bottom card and my psu. It's not my expert opinion but it seems like there is plenty of room in there.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

so long as they arent overheating dont worry about it. Otherwise have a side fan blowing on the cards, that may or may not help.

 

[megamanx00]

Yup that's a good case. If there's an option to install fans on top (I assume because it has top vents) then I say buy some fans for that. Anyway, a 10C difference at idle seems about right (one card isn't doing anything after all) so as long as your temps stay withing reasonable range I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[festerovic]

For comparison - I have the Asus 6850 CU models, my idle temps are within 2* of each other. I have a wireless NIC blocking 20% of the downward facing fan (its not the reference cooler) of the top card. Bottom card is 2" from the bottom of the case. Load temps don't get over 60* for me. Its all in a Sunbeam transformer case (you may laugh).

 

[megamanx00]

Heh, transformer. It doesn't transform, but it has cool lights .

 

[diec4st]

I get awesome frames of BF2 now except now I get a flashing black screen every so often.

Also, it's not my top card that is running hotter. It's my bottom card (the second one).

The flashing black screen is a game bug, go in your BFBC2 folder, edit the settings file and change "Bloom=true" for "Bloom=false".

Hope that helps.

 

[prognosis]

I am still having this problem. The temp and usage difference isnt just at idle, it's all the time. When I am playing battlefield 3 the the second card runs about 7-10 degress hotter and the useage is usually higher as well.

 

[dudeguzman]

Hows your game play on bf3 with your crossfire system?

 

[prognosis]

It plays quite well actually. It just it worries me seeing me second card run at 75-80 degrees and my first card only at 65-70 degrees.

 

[festerovic]

If they were mine I would remove the heatsink and apply new paste. Maybe the cooler is off just a little bit, or its not mounted tightly enough.

 

[JackMomma]

do you have your monitors hooked into the lower one? I'm running two 6870's and get close to those temps with the top card holding the monitors. BF3 has done well for me as well... but I am kind of wishing i'd have upped it to the 6850's and gone with 2gig cards for these crazy textures

 

[Djentleman]

I didn't read all of the posts - but maybe, should i suggest. You should probably get MSI after burner. Then you can control your fan speeds....

 

[prognosis]

MSI afterburner is exactly what i use. It's set to auto and the second card's fan is always running faster.

Forget the temps for a minute. Is it natural that the bottom (second) card's usage is so much higher?