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SLI Gigabyte GTX 560 ti Temperatures

schmutz06

schmutz06

schmutz06

Associate
Joined
19 Jun 2011
Posts
52
My SLI Gigabyte GTX 560 ti GPU's reach high temperatures. I've looked around and read they are ok but I'm curious what other people think

temperatures:

Idle:

GPU 1: 34C
GPU 2: 32C

Usage: 0-5%

FurMark (run for 3 minutes)

GPU 1: 92C
GPU 2: 82C

Usage: 99%

Crysis 2 DX11 Ultra (running for 1hr+)

GPU 1: 95C
GPU 2: 85C

Usage: 50-99%

When idle again, the cards will drop back to 35C in about 3 minutes.

Data taken from MSI afterburner.

I am running the GPU's @ 1100 mV (the voltage MUST be increased for stabilty in DX11 games like Crysis 2 and was required for BF3 Beta also)

I have the core clocks underclocked to 867MHz (default is 900MHz)

The memory clock is underclocked to 1936MHz (default is 2000MHz)

Fan speed is on automatic, driver version is 285.38 - these are the BF3 Beta drivers

I use the coolermaster CM 690 II Advanced case with 3 cooling fans.

My questions

1) Are these healthy temperatures?

2) Is it normal for GPU 1 to operate around 10C higher under load?

3) Should I consider placing a case cooling fan above where the GPU's are located to suck the warm air out of my case?

I believe my temperatures were around 20C lower when I was only running the one 560ti so I have a theory that the SLI configuration is left stewing in it's own heat/obstructing good air flow! I also have a Asus Xonar sound card underneath the second GPU, again cluttering things up a little. Seems like a cooling fan to suck air out of this area would help, but I am no expert on air flow and such.

Thank you for any advice :)
 
schmutz06 said:
I use the coolermaster CM 690 II Advanced case with 3 cooling fans.

My questions

1) Are these healthy temperatures?

2) Is it normal for GPU 1 to operate around 10C higher under load?

3) Should I consider placing a case cooling fan above where the GPU's are located to suck the warm air out of my case?

I believe my temperatures were around 20C lower when I was only running the one 560ti so I have a theory that the SLI configuration is left stewing in it's own heat/obstructing good air flow! I also have a Asus Xonar sound card underneath the second GPU, again cluttering things up a little. Seems like a cooling fan to suck air out of this area would help, but I am no expert on air flow and such.
Click to expand...
I have the CM690 II Advanced case as well, and for my own experience (with my MSI 5850 Twin FrozR II which the cooler is also the dump heat into the case type same as the Gigabyte's custom cooler), I will confirm for you that having a fan on the side-panel next to the graphic card as exhaust WILL help lowering the temp (more so than as intake), as there will be less heat get recycled back into the graphic cards coolers.

Exhausting the heat aside, you need to improve the amount of cool air that's being intake into the case. Unfortunately the default 140mm blue LED fan at front is not powerful enough to force enough air into the case through the drive-bays...so if you have no more than two HDD, you should only use the top two HDD bay, and remove the drive-bays below (yes they are removable, you just need to find where the screws are). If the bottom 4 HDD drive bays, drive cage etc removed, the area below your two non-removable HDD drive bays should be completely empty, thus wouldn't restrict the airflow coming from the fromt 140mm blue LED fan.

It is normal for the top graphic card to run hotter than the one below, as the lower card will block and restrict the amount of cool air that reach the top card. You can also add a 120mm fan onto the HDD cage between the drive cage and the graphic card; you won't have all 4 holes for fulling mount the fan as you'd have removed the lower drive cage, but you can still mount it onto the two screw holes on the non-removable drive cage. I would recommend you considering using the Silverstone Air Penetrator AP121 fan for that, as it will channel the air "inline" with the graphic cards, rather than spread the air. Here's a video for your reference:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m8fC809TK0

As for your Asus Xonar sound card, is it a PCI card or a PCI-E card? If it is a PCI-E card and you motherboard has a PCI-E slot about your top graphic card slot, it will be better to move it there.

Here's what my system airflow looks like:
690iix.jpg
 
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Regarding my Xonar card (PCI-E). I use the Silver Arrow heatsink as well (I needed to rotate the fans 45degrees to fit inside that case!) It didn't appear that the Xonar sound card would be able to fit underneath the giant heatsink, this is why reluctantly I went with one of the lower PCI slots. I'll look into this though. If there is space to install my sound card in this top slot then I am all for it.

I use 3 HDD's and an SSD in my system so there is no way I could give the 140mm front fan more room by removing the bays. If I can knock 10C off the GPU temperatures I'll be comfortable. I'm going to add an exhaust fan to the side of my case above the GPU's, your advice has made this decision a lot easier :) Fingers crossed this and moving the sound card will lower the temperatures significantly.

Could you recommend the best cooling fan for this job? (side exhaust) Would I be looking at 120mm or 140mm fans for this? I wouldn't be interested in paying extra for fancy LED lights and such, but I'll pay for top performance and silent operation!

Thank you so much for your help
 
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does anyone have a suggestion for a cooling fan? (For my case, SLI 560ti GPU's ) Would I be looking at 120mm or 140mm fans for this? I wouldn't be interested in paying extra for fancy LED lights and such, but I'll pay for top performance and silent operation!

Tempted to get the Xilence Red Wing 120mm Quiet Fan because it has a lot of reviews around the web. Anything else worth considering? What do you guys use to cool your GPUs? (exhaust fan)
 
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Wow that is hot ! Getting my second 560 Ti twin frozr delivered on Tuesday.

I'm curious to how you find DirectX 11 performance in SLI? with one i get about about 30-40fps @1080p all maximum settings in Crysis 2.

Thanks
 
I've been playing some Battlefield 3 with the side panel off. The first (hotter) GPU was running at 75C, compared to 90-100C it was running with the side panel on. So it's certainely an issue I should be able to fix with an exhaust fan. I've been reading about air pressure/air flow issues, such as the PSU fan being affected by an exhaust fan in this area. Is it likely I'll run into any problems like this?

Also I am only interested in performance/noise levels Marine-RX179 so I can spare the extra cost for LED lights and such. Will I need a 120mm or 140mm fan?

starkill3r said:
Wow that is hot ! Getting my second 560 Ti twin frozr delivered on Tuesday.

I'm curious to how you find DirectX 11 performance in SLI? with one i get about about 30-40fps @1080p all maximum settings in Crysis 2.

Thanks
Click to expand...

The second 560ti improved my framerates from 30-40fps to 50-80fps in DX11/ultra/high res textures (1080p). I am extremely pleased with the extra performance it also gives me playable framerates when using my monitors highest resolution of 2560x1440.
 
SLI will increase your running temps. This is made worse if you have two case-dumping cards (ones with big fans on them) as they raise the delta temp around the cards quite significantly.

Either whap on a 120mm on the side panel of buy an Antec Spot Cool :)

Other than that GPUs are usually fine untill they creep over 100oC
 
schmutz06 said:
Also I am only interested in performance/noise levels Marine-RX179 so I can spare the extra cost for LED lights and such. Will I need a 120mm or 140mm fan?
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You missed my post at #5 :p
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FG-063-AK&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=1816

For my case, it is on my desk to my right around half a meter away, so the side-panel exhaust fan is around my right arm's level. Personally I find the noise level is acceptable at 1200rpm or lower, but if your case is further away from you, you can probably accept the fan's noise level at a bit higher than 1200rpm.

Also, because my case uses the window side-panel, it has only option for using 120mm fan, where as the default side-panel of the 690II should take either 120mm or 140mm fan (and obviously having a bigger fan would allow to to shift more air, thus able to shift same amount of air as the 120mm fan at a lower rpm).

Also, you should add a 120mm fan to the drive cage and blow toward the front of the cards, so it would be push the air toward the rear of the case.
 
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I actually removed my Antec Spotcol as a side fan because I dont need it anymore after adding a red led Xigamatek fan (completely silent with great airflow):

dsc00035og.jpg


I havnt stress tested them, but they are completely stable with low temps while gaming at 950 Mhz and stock voltage without a side fan (Antec P182 case with thick sound insulating side panels).

Everything is completely silent and cool with a 4.2 Ghz I7 920, and 950 / 4800 Mhz GTX 560 Tis :)

I was recently having a lot of noise that I thought was my hard drive because it wasnt any of the fans in the picture, but it actually turned out to be my front case fan which I replaced with another silent fan.
 
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I'm running two single fan GTX 560s (no ti) and they didn't quite hit the 90s but I was still concerned with them running hot. My mobo layout and cramped case means I have to use the first two pci ex slots. I had a similar huge temp difference between cards at first before plonking fans in front and to the side of the cards. Now I get a healthier 70C load on the top card (75-80 with higher clocks/volts) and few degress off this with the bottom card.
 
Right! sorry marine. I'll go for a 140mm fan then, for the extra performance. The option to set the RPM based on noise levels should give me enough versatility.

jklc said:
I'm running two single fan GTX 560s (no ti) and they didn't quite hit the 90s but I was still concerned with them running hot. My mobo layout and cramped case means I have to use the first two pci ex slots. I had a similar huge temp difference between cards at first before plonking fans in front and to the side of the cards. Now I get a healthier 70C load on the top card (75-80 with higher clocks/volts) and few degress off this with the bottom card.
Click to expand...

This is great to hear. Running with the side panel off has gives me maximum temps of around 25C less than with it on.(~75C, previously 100C) For peace of mind I hope to reduce my temperates to around 80C at the most when I install another fan. Fingers crossed.

starkill3r said:
Sounds good!

Thanks for the reply, what are your frame rates like in BF3 with SLI?
Click to expand...

They work great currently with BF3 @ 1920x1080 and I am confident it will improve when the game is further optimised. They average 80FPS, but drop to 55FPS or so in the most intense of situations. I have everything on "ultra" apart from shadows (high) and ambient occlusion (set to SSAO). HBAO, the highest setting for ambient occlusion (which is a subtle yet stunning effect) unfortunately costs about 10-20fps. I don't use any AA either. 2x AA halfs the framerate, 8X AA gives me a 2-5fps slideshow.

Using 2560x1440 also reduces my framerate to sub-60fps levels, all the way down to 30fps at times, so I compromise and use 1080p because I value the minimum FPS highly. 2560x1440 with EVERYTHING apart from AA maxed averages 30-40fps, and looks completely incredible at times.
 
schmutz06 said:
They work great currently with BF3 @ 1920x1080 and I am confident it will improve when the game is further optimised. They average 80FPS, but drop to 55FPS or so in the most intense of situations. I have everything on "ultra" apart from shadows (high) and ambient occlusion (set to SSAO). HBAO, the highest setting for ambient occlusion (which is a subtle yet stunning effect) unfortunately costs about 10-20fps. I don't use any AA either. 2x AA halfs the framerate, 8X AA gives me a 2-5fps slideshow.

Using 2560x1440 also reduces my framerate to sub-60fps levels, all the way down to 30fps at times, so I compromise and use 1080p because I value the minimum FPS highly. 2560x1440 with EVERYTHING apart from AA maxed averages 30-40fps, and looks completely incredible at times.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply, I'm confident I should get really good performance when I get my second card then, What speed is your PCI-E slots running at ? x8/x8? or x16/x16? I've just bought a ASrock Extreme4 Gen3 and they are x16 slots, but in SLI they both run at x8

Many thanks.
 
A good fan to help with air intake is the silverstone air penetrator. I bought two of the 140mm 1500 rpm ones to replace a few yates. The silverstones have great focused airflow, ideal for intakes to help with gpu's. Ive also stuck an antec spotcool behind the gpu's.
 
schmutz06 said:
Right! sorry marine. I'll go for a 140mm fan then, for the extra performance. The option to set the RPM based on noise levels should give me enough versatility.
Click to expand...
Just want to point out that PWM's auto speed control wouldn't work if you are only connecting the 4pin PWM to 3pin on the motherboard. I think you can still select the one of the few different fan speed settings for the case fan in BIOs. However, it might actually affect the speed of other fans that are also connected to the motherboard...but if each fan's speed can be set separately, the it wouldn't be a problem...but if that cannot be done, I would recommend have a look at application such as speedfan, which allow you to set custom fanspeed profile for each fan that are connected to the motherboard, provided that if the motherboard is supported by the app.
 
I see you are already on the case.. but the simple option of sticking a fan like these guys suggest, really is the best option. Good luck :-)
 
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