How can I properly cool my SLI configuration?

[christianskovborg]

Hi. Does anyone have a good idea on how I can properly cool my SLI gtx 970 configuration? I've got the Gainward ones, non-phantom (http://www.gainward.com/main/vgapro.php?id=954). They're heating up pretty quickly, seeing temperatures at around 80 - 85°c on full load, which I'm most definately not comfortable with. I have looked at AIO cooling for these, but available space in my chassis is very limited right now. Are there any good custom blowers I can mount on these?

Also, i'm currently running my i5-7600k at 4.8ghz at stock voltage, idle temps are averaging at 43°c and full load with prime 95 v26.6 is < 75°c. The current cooler is Hyper 212 Evo. Should I upgrade my cooler to an AIO solution before pushing the chip further?

Thanks in advance

 

[adamscurr]

How is the air movement in your case... One problem with SLI is that they tend to blow air out the sides and they can pick up that hot air. Also, the upper card always seems to be hotter than the lower card...

One solution I found is the make sure you have good air flow through your case. Having some fans blowing on them can't hurt... Also, some fans on top and the back can move hot air out of the case quickly so your GPU's are not recycling that hot air...

Adam

 

[DigitalHamster]

Hey - I know it has been a few weeks but since this hasn't been answered I though I would chip in...

The cards you have are blower coolers, which is excellent for SLI because they blow nearly all the heat out the back of the case.
However, what you will notice is that blower coolers do run fairly hot, or they run cooler but with a lot of noise.
My GTX660s in SLI, for example, run at 73c on a high fan speed, so they still run fairly warm but make a ton of noise (literally sounds like two hairdryers being used) to get that cooling performance. Mine run at identical temperatures though because my motherboard does have an empty slot in between the cards so both can breath easily.

I do not think your cards are faulty, it's just the nature of blower coolers. I would suggest downloading MSI Afterburner and creating a custom fan profile that increases the speed of the fans at temperatures above 70c. It may get noisy and you may not like it, but I think it's the best you can do.
But, 80 to 85c for a GPU is acceptable and is not really a worry.

As for SLI top card vs bottom card - do you have a gap in between them? Some motherboards force the cards to be sandwiched together which restricts the top card's air flow.
Then again, the top card does usually get hotter due to the nature of GPU usage (top one may see more usage), and SLI usually makes the top one hotter as far as things seem to go, perhaps because it also has to sync the GPUs and output to the display.

So - your CPU... 4.8GHz at stock voltage is literally insane, that's amazing.
For voltage, try not to exceed around 1.35v, because at that point its likely it will get very hot, and higher voltages may slowly damage the chip. You may want to get a better cooler to reduce temperatures further, but the Hyper 212 is doing a good job anyway.
I only consider 'pushing' an overclock if I raise the voltage to high levels. If you get so far to reach 1.3v or above, an AIO would be good, but bear in mind high end air coolers like the Noctua NH-D15 will perform similarly, if not slightly better. At this point I imagine you would be hitting at least 5GHz.

Hamster