Liquid Cooling for Crossfire R9 380 GPUs?

[tfitch11]

Hello everyone, I have asked this before but the solutions that I tried didn't end up working:

Boyfriend has an Asus Z97-A with an OC'd i5 4690k CPU...
Running Crossfired R9 380's:

Gigabyte Radeon R9 380 4GB

and

Sapphire Nitro Radeon R9 380 4GB

He also just got this display, LG 34" Curved Ultra Wide Monitor


Essentially, he's having GPU temp issues. While running Furmark Burn-In Benchmark at 1920x1080, he is reaching temps of 79-80C.

We were worried about this from when we ordered the monitor. Now let's talk ventilation:

Front of the case: - Case is Corsair Spec-01
2x 140mm intake fans
CPU Cooler: Hyper 212 Evo
Top of the case - 2x 120 exhaust
Rear of the case, 1x120 exhaust

And the side of the case is not designed for a fan.

Question becomes: How do we lower the temps down? Liquid Cooling? If so, please offer recommendations on which products.

Other suggestions welcome. Thanks!

Update: I guess I didn't understand his original concern, and so I have copied his (Hellrott) post from below:

I'm not sure that she understood the problem correctly as I was working over here trying to discern what had happened.

The test linked above is actually done on stock settings and had predictable results, it was a tad higher than I wanted it to be in terms of temps but I know that 70-80 is fine especially if it's during a torture test.

The issue was earlier all I had open was League of Legends client and I was streaming it at my resolution. I was monitoring temps of course but suddenly my SECOND card was at 100+ degrees. The first card was at something like 42. So I immediately panic and set the fans to max speeds which they should've done automatically if it actually detected those temps.

I shut down the computer and it immediately booted again. Oh no, I think, I just fried my card the SSD gave me a near instant boot which doesn't happen with the crossfire. The second card was still showing lights and had fans spinning, however. The card was read as a random display adapter under the 'main' R9 380. I restarted the computer once more to make sure it couldn't fix any issues. First rule of computers, after all.

So it detects it this time. Everything is fine, the card is fine, I run the tests and everything is great. I OC them slightly to see how that changes things. I ran that same test above and had to stop about 3m in due to overheating. Again pretty predictable. Dropped it back to stock settings, then you got the above test which I was very relieved to see.

So I have no idea what happened. I had MSI Afterburner open and GPU-Z open at the same time and I wonder if they conflicted with each other somehow but I really just have no idea how or what happened. I'm just happy the cards appear to be stable again.

The question really is this:

Are dual R9 380s sufficient to support this monitor and streaming at a normal resolution of 1920x1080 or do I need to update my cooling system?

 

[cdabc123]

80 c is a fine max temp for those gpu's he could also increase fan speed.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

There's no concern about temps at 79-80C, AMD is kinda cheap on power and temp info but in their AMA w/ THG, they reported that there R9 series was just fine at up to 95C.

You have a lot more air going out than in as the intake fans tho bigger are limited by intake dust filters.... so the air being exhausted out of the rear of the case thru the card grilles is likely being sucked right back in.

The case is your biggest issue, it's not quite up to dual GFX card installations. Liquid cooling is not the answer as it has very limited water cooling options.

Do they make water blocks for those 380s ?
http://www.ekwb.com/configurator/

I will be right back with some calculations for you:

The card pulls 200 watts and afterbuner allows you to raise th power limit by 20%
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/asus_radeon_r9_380_strix_review,5.html

So we looking at 2 x 200 x 1.2 or 480 watts

Add 130 for CPU, 10 for RAM, 40 for MoBo, 20 for storage / misc so 680 watts

About 60% of the max theoretical heat load must be handle by the rads, the rest accounted for by the fact that everything isn't at max load at the same time and that the rad shrouds, card blocks and surfaces, tubing and everything else radiates heat

so 680 x 60% = 408 watts

At 1250 rpm ...

each 120mm of rad is good for about 61 watts 74 w/ push-pull
each 140mm of rad is good for about 85 watts 101 w/ push-pull

So ideally (at 10C Delta T), your looking at between 4 and 7 sections (120 / 140) of rad

At a rather noisy 1800 rpm...

At 1250 rpm ...

each 120mm of rad is good for about 86 watts 104 w/ push-pull
each 140mm of rad is good for about 117 watts 141 w/ push-pull

a 45 mm thick 140 x 420 rad would give you 351 watts with (3) 1800 rpm fans and a Delta T of about 12C
a 45 mm thick 140 x 420 rad would give you 255 watts with (3) 1250 rpm fans and a Delta T of about 16C ... add (30 more fans in pull and you would get 303 watts and 13.5C which I think is the ebst bet as it keeps things quiet

Choices:

A. Water cooling - if you can find water block for both cards, the a 420 rad (Aphacool XT45-420) runs about $90. A D5 pump ($65) and two water blocks ($250) along with the necessary tubing and fittings would complete the deal.

B, Since your case will not accommodate that, you may first want to take an intermediate step and upgrade to an Enthoo Luxe. It comes with a 200mm intake fan and (2) 140 mm exhaust fans. I would move the top exhaust fan to the bottom as an intake fan (specs say one fits but 2 can fit). Then I would add 1250 rpm fans to the top.... it will fit 3 but pick as many as budget allows.

Putting them as exhaust seems "logical" cause we learned in 8th grade earth science that hot air rises and this is what I would probably do with 1 fan as it should still maintain positive air pressure and keep hot air exhausted from the cards, as well as a lot of dust from coming in the back grilles.

If you use 3 fans here, then you will have way more air going out then in, sucking hot air and dust in the the rear of the case, so ya may want to use these as intakes. If you later put a rad there, then definitely will have to be intakes, but if no rad you can try both ways and see what works better.

I'd also place a 120mm fan (Phantekls PH-F120MP) on the back of the HD cage to blow air between the cards. Make sure to put the fans on separate MoBo channels by speed

Bottom and rear fans, up to 3, 1250 rpm (2 come with case) - PH-F140SP
Top fans, up to 3, 1250 rpm - PH-F140SP
Connect all fans (up to 6) to the included fan PCB which will control all these fans from a single MoBo header.

Put the 120mm fan on the back of the HD cage and connect it to a MoBo CHA header

Put the 200mm fan on the back of the HD cage and connect it to a MoBo CHA header

So... again, you can start with just the case and then based upon the results, step up as your temps and budget demand.

Step 1 - Get larger better ventilated case
Step 2 - If not happy add fans...
- Rear Fits (1) 140mm (comes with case)
- Top Fits (3) 140mm (1 comes with case)
- Bottom Fits (2) 140mm
- Front Fits (1) 200mm (comes with case)
- HD cage - Fits (1) 120mm
Step 3 - if still not happy, add radiator / water cooling
Step 4 - if still need happy, add additional set of fans for rads in pull.

My thinking is you will not need to go w/ water.... my son has the Luxe with two 970s and he runs way cool ... all fan slots are filled except for the HD cage and they rarely break 700 rpm so it's nice and quiet.

 

[Hellrott]

I'm not sure that she understood the problem correctly as I was working over here trying to discern what had happened.

The test linked above is actually done on stock settings and had predictable results, it was a tad higher than I wanted it to be in terms of temps but I know that 70-80 is fine especially if it's during a torture test.

The issue was earlier all I had open was League of Legends client and I was streaming it at my resolution. I was monitoring temps of course but suddenly my SECOND card was at 100+ degrees. The first card was at something like 42. So I immediately panic and set the fans to max speeds which they should've done automatically if it actually detected those temps.

I shut down the computer and it immediately booted again. Oh no, I think, I just fried my card the SSD gave me a near instant boot which doesn't happen with the crossfire. The second card was still showing lights and had fans spinning, however. The card was read as a random display adapter under the 'main' R9 380. I restarted the computer once more to make sure it couldn't fix any issues. First rule of computers, after all.

So it detects it this time. Everything is fine, the card is fine, I run the tests and everything is great. I OC them slightly to see how that changes things. I ran that same test above and had to stop about 3m in due to overheating. Again pretty predictable. Dropped it back to stock settings, then you got the above test which I was very relieved to see.

So I have no idea what happened. I had MSI Afterburner open and GPU-Z open at the same time and I wonder if they conflicted with each other somehow but I really just have no idea how or what happened. I'm just happy the cards appear to be stable again.

The question really is this:

Are dual R9 380s sufficient to support this monitor and streaming at a normal resolution of 1920x1080 or do I need to update my cooling system?

Edit: if anyone can explain what may have happened, why was it my second card that it happened to? From what I have seen so far from crossfiring, the load is on the "first" card before the second. How does it distribute the processes? I don't think it's treating it as one video card because it has different loads and different times but it's always using the Sapphire first (as opposed to the second card, which is Gigabyte)

 

[cdabc123]

I'm not sure that she understood the problem correctly as I was working over here trying to discern what had happened.

The test linked above is actually done on stock settings and had predictable results, it was a tad higher than I wanted it to be in terms of temps but I know that 70-80 is fine especially if it's during a torture test.

The issue was earlier all I had open was League of Legends client and I was streaming it at my resolution. I was monitoring temps of course but suddenly my SECOND card was at 100+ degrees. The first card was at something like 42. So I immediately panic and set the fans to max speeds which they should've done automatically if it actually detected those temps.

I shut down the computer and it immediately booted again. Oh no, I think, I just fried my card the SSD gave me a near instant boot which doesn't happen with the crossfire. The second card was still showing lights and had fans spinning, however. The card was read as a random display adapter under the 'main' R9 380. I restarted the computer once more to make sure it couldn't fix any issues. First rule of computers, after all.

So it detects it this time. Everything is fine, the card is fine, I run the tests and everything is great. I OC them slightly to see how that changes things. I ran that same test above and had to stop about 3m in due to overheating. Again pretty predictable. Dropped it back to stock settings, then you got the above test which I was very relieved to see.

So I have no idea what happened. I had MSI Afterburner open and GPU-Z open at the same time and I wonder if they conflicted with each other somehow but I really just have no idea how or what happened. I'm just happy the cards appear to be stable again.

The question really is this:

Are dual R9 380s sufficient to support this monitor and streaming at a normal resolution of 1920x1080 or do I need to update my cooling system?

that is most likely a software issue that occurred the fans would go to 100% if you had any fan monitoring software. also yes dual 380's should be sufficient.

 

[Hellrott]

That's what I thought then went into panic mode when I saw that and now I'm afraid to do anything, haha. Do you have any idea what could've happened as far as why the card 'failed' and wasn't being read and ceased being crossfired?

 

[cdabc123]

That's what I thought then went into panic mode when I saw that and now I'm afraid to do anything, haha. Do you have any idea what could've happened as far as why the card 'failed' and wasn't being read and ceased being crossfired?

my best guess was this was a issue with the bios in the cards but that would be just a guess.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Different cards in a multi GPU situation can always be problematic. In a tiny case like that, heat will always be a problem with 2 cards. As I said above, I think a case upgrade will solve the temperature issue. If, budget wise, that is not in the cards, then check and see if you have 30mm or so between the cards and the HD cages... a Phanteks PH- F120MP would do wonders to equalize the card temps.

See my comments above about your negative pressure situation which, with your fan arrangement, is sucking hot air exhausted from the cards / PSU in thru your rear grille. Try flipping the top fans over and using them as intakes. Yes, it's counter intuitive cause we all learned in 8th grade that hot air rises. But, no hot air definitely does not rise in the face of a fan(s) spinning at 1200 - 1800 rpm. This should force air out thru the rear grilles of the case rather than having the hot air exhausting from the cards and PSU coming right back in. Wanna convince yaself ? Take a balloon and warm it up by holding it 2 feet above a lit stove. Now let it go below a ceiling fan and see what it does. Cigarette smoke also works.... if ya have any older relatives who still smoke these days .

 

[Hellrott]

How can I argue with badges like that?

Thanks a bunch, I'll try that out. It's against the advise I received in another thread but your explanation makes sense to me

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Well sometimes a lack of common sense makes us miss the obvious but also sometimes common sense steers us in the wrong direction because we take certain things as gospel even the applicability isn't there and context changes long accepted axioms.

I have 15 fans blowing in in my case and just 1 exhaust ... 1st rad has 6, 2nd rad has 4 so that's most of them, the case fans blow the way they do because of where they are ...

-Rear ... always out, ya don't wanna suck in any hot air coming out the back of your case thru the rear grilles.
-Front ... always in, you don't want hot air blowing in ya face and they have air INLET filters
-Top ... radiator here so must be in but note that there are air INLET filters built into the case. Why would manufacturers put an inlet air filter there if it was intended to be an exhaust fan location ? It IS a case designed for water cooling so that explains the reasoning.
-Bottom ... all air exiting case will eb rising so good place to draw in cool air.
-Sides ... depending on where they are ... if high, exhaust, if low then intakes.

My son is in a band and they have a fog machine.... I steal his little old one to do air testing, which gives yoiu results like seen here (1:00 mark).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkRJsjuvQVY

In the scenario there, air cooling, having them as exhaust makes perfect sense. When radiators are installed, you see the fog coming in the the 3 fans on the top, but it never gets down low near the video cards. With all the fans blowing in, air has nowhere to get out but the rear grille ... the entire case volume is exhausted about every 3 seconds.

BTW, just after the 1:00 mark in the video, you see the two fans mounted on the back of the HD cage .... these do wonders to blow air between the cards and keep top card cool.