Are my 5870s to hot?

[Nippletweaker]

I have a pair of 5870s (HIS ICooler Turbos - factory overclocking not changed by me) running in Crossfire and they are idling at 58-60C and at full load are going past 90C. I assume its an airflow issue.

What is a safe maximum for these cards?

I have a side blower but the design of my case (Antec P180) means the side fan actually sucks air from the rear of the case where the graphics cards are sending out their nice hot air. I have a front fan (12cm) blowing in towards the cards and a 12cm fan in the top/roof of the case and 2 12cm fans (one either side of the radiator from my H50) all blowing out the back (sucking).

I have Revodrive PCI card which is currently having issues with my MB so is not installed but if this is installed it blocks the lower cards fan and temperatures go up further.

Is there anything I can do to improve matters? I am considering watercooling but am not sure what blocks would fit the HIS cards and am new to this so don't want to turn my PC into a fishtank...

 

[ThomasTheTankEngine]

90+ is a bit high for those cards. Have you tried messing around with the fan speed? I use MSI afterburner to setup a custom fan profile which boosts the speed of the fan when things get too hot.

You could also try a pci blower like this.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-219-LL&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=399

 

[antran]

I had the same problem with xfire 5850, what I did was stick the second card into the third pci-e slot to give some room between the 2 cards. It did help a bit, lowered by 3-5 degrees.

I think this will be a better choice

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CM-003-LL&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=1770

 

[ThomasTheTankEngine]

I had the same problem with xfire 5850, what I did was stick the second card into the third pci-e slot to give some room between the 2 cards. It did help a bit, lowered by 3-5 degrees.

I think this will be a better choice

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CM-003-LL&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=1770

Ahh yes... I was looking for that, but couldn't see it listed in the cooling section.

Either one of them, or the smaller lian-li. Don't bother with the akasa ones, they're crap.

 

[Nippletweaker]

Unfortunately its a no go on the seperate coolers - there is not enough space. Also my only x16 PCI-e slots are the two pouplated ones.

 

[antran]

the option is a new a case

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-221-CM&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=29