Hi all,
Just looking for some guidance on an overheating issue with 2 Sapphire R290s in a NZXT H440. Sorry- this is going to start a bit long winded but it’s a case of one issue had lead to another and so on…
I've got a NZXT H440 case- I’ve seen a lot of posts since they have been out and I know the case was primarily aimed at watercooling and not air cooling, but until I’ve recently gone Crossfire my temps have never been an issue.
This is my rig spec:
NZXT H440
i7-4790K 4.00GHz (Devil's Canyon)
Corsair Hydro H110 CPU Cooler
Gigabyte Z97X-SOC Force Intel Z97
TeamGroup Vulcan ORANGE 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 2400MHz
Sapphire Radeon R9 290 Vapor-X 4096MB
Samsung 500GB SSD
OCZ 240 SSD
2TB Hybrid HDD
SuperFlower Leadex Platinum 1200W
Windows 10 64-Bit
Purchased from Overclockers August 2014 and never had any issues with heat. I've got the stock fans installed still in the H440; 3 at the front intake, 1 rear exhaust, and i've got the H110 rad at the top of the case.
I've not overclocked the GPU or CPU as it has been able to run every game I have thrown at it at highest settings and the temps have been around 40-60c. The Sapphire card has got the green/yellow/orange/red glow to indicate its heat and in the year I’ve had it, its never gone into red and the fans have always stayed quite.
Most recently I have been playing GTA5 and it has got that great indicator in the graphics settings to let you know how much of the graphics card ram it is using. I've got all settings at high and a few at highest and MMSA turned off which kept the ram indicator in the green and the heat in check. Everything running smooth and quite!
So I figured heat wasn't ever going to be an issue in my rig and recently after seeing all the new games coming over the next year I thought I'd pick up a second Sapphire R290 with the future plan to get a 4K screen.
So I bought a second Sapphire R290 Vapor-X 4096MB, same as I already have.
The depth of these cards are BIG - they take up 2.5 PCI slots. So I've got my original one in the top slot, and the second one in bottom PCI slot (this was the only choice) and it sits about an SSD depth above the SSDs that are mounted above the PSU housing.
Turned the PC on no problems- AMD Catalyst recognised the card and turned on crossfire. Loaded up GTA, increased a couple of the settings to highest and still left MMSA off. The ram indictor stated around 6000 of the 8000~ MB was being used and it was in the green bar for usage load.
Stared playing the game and what a difference the second card made- great I thought!
...then about 10 minutes later I started feeling the heat against my legs- I first thought the missus had turned the heating on! Paused the game (sound was quite high) and then I heard all the fans at full whack- spotted under the desk that both the cards were glowing deep red! Quickly quit the game, turned off the PC and opened the case up to let the heat disburse.
Once it cooled, I went back and after some trial and error in GTA, I lowered the settings back to what I had them on with a single card, and also turned off Vsync. Also made sure all settings in Catalyst were at default and dictated by application.
This managed to keep the temps down and the cards glowing at yellow/orange.
However, after a few hours of playing again I started hearing an electrical tick/buzz noise- alt-tab game to desktop, case open again, trial and error with each fan and then traced the noise to be coming from the PSU. Was a bit miffed by this as I would have thought that the 1000w PSU would have been more than enough for my spec?
So my questions are have I shot myself in the foot by trying to go crossfire in this H440 case with the size of these cards and possibly damaged the PSU and (regardless of the PSU issue) have I compromised the cooling of the case with the second card, is it just too much for aircooling in a case that is known to get hot?
What are my options? These are what I have been considering…
1- cut my losses and go back to 1 card or sell both and put towards a single 8192mb card?
2- Upgrade the stock fans – looking at the newer NZXT fans that produce more CFM than the stock with the NXZT Grid+ to mange the speeds.
- and off the back of this should I change the positions of the fans by moving the Hydro rad to the front and the 3 fans to the top to either pull in air over the cards or to draw the heat out.
3- Watercool the cards – looking at the Overclockers purpose built AOI GPU cooling options but I would be limited to a double and a single rad, not 2 doubles.
4- Any other suggestions?...
Thanks in advance and sorry for the essay!
Mike