GeForce 580GTX Excessive Heat

[gghilliard]

Hi,

I am running a SLI setup with a MSI TF 580GTX and an EVGA stock 580GTX. My mb is an Asus P6X58D-E with an i7 950. 12gigs of corsair dominator DDR3 1600 and a XFX 850W Black Edition PSU. It's all in a HAF X case with everything but the second top fan (which has been ordered and should be here soon).

The cards are in slots 1 and 2 on my mb. When running them at load, the MSI, which is in slot 1 closest to the cpu, hits temps in the low to mid 90s. The second card may peak at about 80C, which to my understanding is acceptable. But above 90 is a problem? I can move the second card to the third slot and I assume this would help. But will I lose any performance by doing so? Slots one and two are at x16 link and slot three is at x8 link. I don't really understand what that means.

But the manual for my board says run 2 card SLI in slot one and two.

Any suggestions on what I should do? or if I will lose some performance/video quality by moving card 2 to the x8 link slot?

Thanks in advance.

 

[blade061188]

What are you doing when your top card gets up to 90C? Gaming, or running Furmark (or another stress test) the decrease from x16 to x8 performance is not very significant. If you are having trouble keeping your temps where you want them it may be worth it to allow a little more space in between the cards.

Also, do you have a custom fan profile set up? You may be able to manage your temps just by increasing the fan speed

 

[gghilliard]

The temp peaked at about 92-94 when I ran furmark, and with games like Crysis 2 and Dragon Age 2.

I don't have a custom fan profile. How do I go about doing that? Software?

Thanks

 

[blade061188]

Yep. Do you have MSI Afterburner? If not you should definitely download it.

It is an overclocking tool, but you don't have to overclock to use it. You can set a custom fan profile that changes the fan speed based on the temps.

event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm

 

[gghilliard]

Yep. Do you have MSI Afterburner? If not you should definitely download it.

It is an overclocking tool, but you don't have to overclock to use it. You can set a custom fan profile that changes the fan speed based on the temps.

event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm

Yeah, I've got it but havn't really used it. I use EVGA precision to monitor my temps. Will I create a custom profile for all my fans or just the GPU fans?

 

[blade061188]

Afterburner will allow you to create a fan profile for your GPU fans.

 

[gghilliard]

Afterburner will allow you to create a fan profile for your GPU fans.

Ok Thanks. I will give it a try and see what it can do.

 

[blade061188]

No problem,

Let me know how it goes. Ideally, you'll be able to drop your temps just by increasing the fan speed.

 

[gghilliard]

No problem,

Let me know how it goes. Ideally, you'll be able to drop your temps just by increasing the fan speed.

 

[gghilliard]

No problem,

Let me know how it goes. Ideally, you'll be able to drop your temps just by increasing the fan speed.

Ok so, I set up a profile, got my fan speeds to ramp up earlie-at lower temps. I tried Crysis 2 and at about 92-94% gpu usage, I was getting 84C. So that definitely helps - by about 10C. So that is great. Thanks.

Should I be trying to get it lower, or am I ok with temps in the mid 80s?

 

[blade061188]

Mid 80s is pretty typical for the setup you have. SLI typically runs hot because the cards are so close together (as you discovered) and 580s run pretty hot anyway.

I think you should be just fine.

If you have all you need, please close the thread (by selecting a best answer) Thanks!

 

[jecho]

I use EVGA precision and I had to go into the settings and let the program automatically run the fans. It dropped my gtx 570 to 68 C full load on BF3. Just in case go to settings fan and click "enable software automatic fan control"

 

[gghilliard]

Best answer selected by gghilliard.