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5870 plus Physx question

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18 Jun 2005
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Bit of an anal question this but here goes.

So having to RMA one of my 5870's over a dodgy fan, I've decided to stick with a single card solution - 1x5870 and hopefully replace with a 5890 next year, funds permitting.

Meanwhile, I have bought a X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty and got my hands on a cheap 9800GT 1GB fror Physx - it's one of the low energy 9800gt's which does not need a pci-e connector from your PSU.

I'm wondering what order these should be installed in. When I was running crossfired 5870's, the top 5870 always ran 10 degrees hotter than the slave card as the fan was blocked. Both cards were running at 16x, and the X-Fi in the 3rd pci-e slot at 1x. All I am doing now is replacing the slave 5870 with a 9800gt, and the same airflow restriction will occur with the top 5870. Would it be better to put the X-Fi in the 2nd pci-e 16x slot. It will still block the airflow, but at least the back of the X-Fi won't heat up like the 9800gt would. I could then put the 9800gt in the 3rd pci-e 16x slot. The only minus to doing this is my cards would now be in 16x8x8x configuration. But I guess physx doesn't need 16x bandwidth.
 
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Why not put the 9800GT in the top one as it won't get that hot doing physx (and won't be used at all in a lot of games) and put the 5870 in the 2nd slot and leave the xi-fi where it is?

Then you will have full bandwidth anyway but as you rightly guessed, the 8x won't make any difference to the performance anyway.

Oh and waht make was the 9800GT please? I am quite tempted to get one myself. I had my gtx260 216 as a physx card for a while but it was overkill to I sold it.
 
Greebo said:
Oh and waht make was the 9800GT please? I am quite tempted to get one myself. I had my gtx260 216 as a physx card for a while but it was overkill to I sold it.
Click to expand...

Zotac make a 9800GT Synergy ~£60 - it has 'virtually' passive cooling bar a very small quiet fan. I'm thinking of getting one for a HTPC build.
 
It's a Zotac synergy 1gb I got. Cost around 90 euro.

Greebo..I see what you are saying and though of that too. However as the 5870 is a dual slot card it still means the fan will be blocked by the X-Fi in the 3rd pci-e 16x slot :( So end result will be same as doing 5870-X-Fi-Physx. I guess I will have t experiment and measure temps.
 
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Have you thought of putting another case fan in on the side of your 922. I just put one in on mine & it's dropped the temps by about 4-5 degrees on my 5870.
 
Thanks. Yep. 1st thing I did was buy the red led 200mm fan from the coolermaster shop. Not sure what difference to temps it made as I had it from the beginning. My 5870 idles at 32 degrees if no other card is in 2nd slot blocking fan. Highest I have seen the 5870 hit is 65 degrees in Crysis or Batman since I setup fan profiles with msi afterburner. So I think temps are fine. The problem as I said is the way a 2nd card blocks the fan on the top card. I probably should have gone for the Asus P6T which has the 2 pci-e slots more spaced out :(
 
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