SLI Temps

[casshern09]

Hi there, I was wondering if poeple could give me some feedback on their GPU temps when running SLI.

I just started using it today. I dont really know what temps are acceptable.

Sitting idle

Main card 40-50
Second card 30-40

Full load

Main card 90-100
Second card 60-70

Are these too high? I though the first card seemed a little high but not sure.

Cheers for any help.

 

[bucknutty]

I have an asus p5n-d mobo with 2 gtx 470s. On that board they are very close to each other the top card only has like a 1/4 of an inch to breath. Any way my cards are normally in the low 90s like 91 92 when gamming, or folding@home. I find if I use Afterburner to turn the fans to like 75-80% the cards stay in the 70s.

 

[casshern09]

Hmmm ok thanks. So in the 90's isn't going to harm it in any way? Just worried about the card melting lol.

Afterburner? That some software you can download?
Does the nvidia panel allow you to alter fan speed?

 

[bucknutty]

It seems weird that your cards have such a large temp difference. Are they the same model? My cards are always within 5 degrees or of each other or so. My case does have 2 80mms intake fans positioned so each card has a fan blowing right on it, so that might help to keep them consistent where many cases have one 92 or 120 intake fan that only blows on the lower card.

 

[casshern09]

Yeah same make and model.

Sat idle now at 46. Other at 36.

 

[bucknutty]

Yah for whatever reason the nvidia cards have low fan profiles. At 90 the fans are only going 50%? Why not have them spinning a little faster from the factory to help reduce the heat?

MSI afterburner allows you to adjust fan settings and gives you an on screen display. Its small free works with all cards nvidia or ati and has lots of othe features. Just google it. I found the Nvidia tool hard to work with so I use afterburner.

 

[casshern09]

Ok installed that. Seems to be keeping it down to around 75-80. Thanks very much
One thing though. I tried the Kombuster thingy. I assume this is a stress test?
It showed one card taking all the strain at around 80, other was sitting at 35. I dont get it? Or am I misunderstanding what it was doing?

 

[bucknutty]

I have to be honest. I never really understood kombuster. It is made to work on all video cards. I dont think the Nvidia SLI profile supports it correctly.

 

[casshern09]

Ah ok.
So when running games, is one of the cards meant to take more of the load, then the other one is used when needed? Or are they supposed to share it?

 

[benski]

Kombustor doesn't do multi-gpu, use furmark if you need a multi-gpu stress test. In games where SLI works the load is generally pretty even, some games SLI doesn't work that well with though and one GPU will be doing all the work.

 

[bucknutty]

In the nvidia control panel there is a little option up top by the file, edit, menu bar, to turn on the SLI indicator I think its under view.

It overlays a graphical green bar on the left side of the screen. More green means the cards are working evenly. Its intresting to watch while gaming, you can actually see how balanced the work load is. Most games have a pretty balanced load on the cards as long as you keep your driver and SLI profiles up to date. Some games will simply not use the second card and there really is no good way to force it.

 

[casshern09]

Ill give that a try.
SLI profiles? Erm, did I miss something? My drivers are up to date but didnt know anything about profiles.

 

[bucknutty]

Sorry this might be an older term now. The profiles are created by Nvidia and packed with the drivers. Back in the old days you had to down load them separately. I used to use the evga custom profiles but now a days they are built in. When a new game comes out SLI will not work very well until Nvidia adds an SLI profile for it.
Below is an excerpt from the release notes for a driver from earlier this year that I happen to have on my desktop.


o Adds SLI profiles for the following PC games:
o Alien vs. Triangles Demo
o Endless City Demo
o Lionheart: Kings Crusade
o Moscow Racer: Legends of USSR
o Rift: Planes of Telara
o Shaun White Skateboarding
o Enhances SLI profiles for the following PC games:
o Age of Conan
o Arcania: Gothic 4
o Civilization V - DX11
o Lost Planet 2
o World Of Warcraft

 

[Mousemonkey]

Some games will simply not use the second card and there really is no good way to force it.

Have you tried playing about with the SLi rendering mode after forcing the .exe to use SLi?

@OP, are you running the cards in the correct slots now?

 

[bucknutty]

Have you tried playing about with the SLi rendering mode after forcing the .exe to use SLi?

That’s a good thought. I messed with that a bit back with my 8800gt rig but never found much success. I’m going to look around a bit to see if any one posted any instructions or experiences with game stats while forcing the.exe