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7970's in CF

G-Sharp

G-Sharp

G-Sharp

Associate
Joined
23 Apr 2012
Posts
196
Hey guys, I'm just about to ditch my trusty 7850 which has served me well with my low resolution monitor, but in a few days I'm about to upgrade to a Dell U3011 and will need more grunt to power the beast.

As you can see from my sig, I have the FT02 case, which has a vertical graphics card orientation. I'm looking to upgrade to a pair of 7970s, which seem to be getting some rave review after the release of the 12.11 drivers.

I'm now thinking whether to get the reference blower type version or non-reference version. As I will be going crossfire, I was just wondering whether having hot air blown from one card to the other and into the case is a good idea, especially with the type of case I have or would a blower type cooler be more suitable for this type of configuration?

All thoughts are appreciated.

Cheers
 
The air blowing around is not the issue, the problem is the orientation and type of the heatpipes used in custom coolers.

You'd have to ask users with the 90deg layout mobos who use particular 7970s if they have any temp issues (or contact silverstone)

For me my 680s LTG twinfrozr 4 are cooler at stock than in standard layout but hotter when overvolted (overheat), so that's an indication the 7970LTGs would not like it.
 
G-Sharp said:
Hey guys, I'm just about to ditch my trusty 7850 which has served me well with my low resolution monitor, but in a few days I'm about to upgrade to a Dell U3011 and will need more grunt to power the beast.

As you can see from my sig, I have the FT02 case, which has a vertical graphics card orientation. I'm looking to upgrade to a pair of 7970s, which seem to be getting some rave review after the release of the 12.11 drivers.

I'm now thinking whether to get the reference blower type version or non-reference version. As I will be going crossfire, I was just wondering whether having hot air blown from one card to the other and into the case is a good idea, especially with the type of case I have or would a blower type cooler be more suitable for this type of configuration?

All thoughts are appreciated.

Cheers
Click to expand...

Do you need two? What resolution do you play at.
 
Stanners said:
Do you need two? What resolution do you play at.
Click to expand...

I was first thinking about going 7950 CF but I saw that the 7970 could be had for £50 more each, so I thought why not? I'll be running my games at 2560x1600.

I think it'll be best to go for the reference cards to be safe? I doubt I'd need to be doing much overclocking anyway as I'm sure they'd play most games, at those resolutions maxed out, at stock?
 
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+1 for reference in CF. They will exhaust the heat out the top of the case nice and quick. 2*7950 is the wiser choice though but I don't blame you for wanting 7970s and if you can justify the extra £100, go for it :)
 
Sapphire do not have the best track record and sadly, a few users have reported MSI to be a bit of a sham lately but that wouldn't put me off MSI. They are quality products.
 
gregster said:
+1 for reference in CF. They will exhaust the heat out the top of the case nice and quick. 2*7950 is the wiser choice though but I don't blame you for wanting 7970s and if you can justify the extra £100, go for it :)
Click to expand...

So a good 2 fan cooler wouldnt be good to put in SLI or CF? :confused:
 
I did run a ref cooled 680 alongside my first MSI Lightning and had the Ref at the top and LTG at the bottom. The top ref card was very hot (75C) when benching and this was on full fan. After swapping them over, temps were a lot better.

Just make sure if you do have 1 ref cooler and 1 custom cooler to put the ref at the bottom of the 2.
 
IC3 said:
So a good 2 fan cooler wouldnt be good to put in SLI or CF? :confused:
Click to expand...

If we're talking a standard orientation case then you need good cooling for sli regardless. But the two/three fan coolers chuck air everywhere and so recycle eachother's hot air.

@ op for reference they are all the same, but I would look for gigabyte for the uk rma center
 
gregster said:
As for the OPs mobo orientation, I would think 2*ref coolers would be ideal. I have no idea on how his case fans are set though.
Click to expand...

My current setup without graphics card:

20120503213657.jpg


They don't have any Gigabyte ref cards at OCUK so I think I'll go for MSI. And I may go watercooled sometime in the future with a 560 rad at the bottom.
 
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Good idea on see how it goes. My fear would be the space inbetween the GPUs not having anywhere for the heat to go but time will tell and if need be, go for the water route.
 
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