6970 Crossfire install and GPU temp help

[Dale]

Hi all,

Just got round to installing x2 new XFX HD6970's into a Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD7 motherboard and first (slightly worrying) observation is that the cards sit absolutely bang flush next to each other with practically zero room for air circulation.

I've uploaded a photo to show this here:

(Larger image available here: 6970_Crossfire_UD7

We are concerned that the temperature of the cards is way to high - After 5min of game play on BC2 in an empty server, 1920x1200 maxed absolutely every setting with average 120+ FPS the GPU's were roughly around 92 degrees Celcius (sure they'd climb higher if allowed).

There is no room to move the cards on the motherboard, the Crossfire bridge won't stretch to allow one of the cards to move down the motherboard (to occupy the 8x PCI-e slot).

Would appreciate comments on whether this is OK to be running like this, and to whether the GPU temps are excessive. We've not started any OCing yet...

(what isn't shown in the photo is that the case has a fan fitment which sits right at the end of the cards with a 120mm fan blowing right up their backsides - the above numbers are with this fan running)

Many thanks, all.

 

[Dale]

Thanks guys, just run Furmark @ 640 x 480 windowed on a stability test for about 10min, ran fine, 300fps, but temperature averaged about 96, and peaked at 102 for a short while. Interesting fact was fans were still running full blast when the temp crept up past 96/7 then span down a bit when it fell to 94/95.

Also, is there any performance impact with swapping 2 16x PCI-e slots for 1 16x and 1 8x slot?

Thanks again.

 

[Dale]

Thanks Maximusi2, I think we're gonna try that.

Sayso, thanks also, however from ATI's side, these are the two most powerful cards you can get. Not sure if Nvidia do anything more powerful though.

It seems odd, if the temperatures are that high, why are the fans not running at absolute maximum?

Edit: Thanks also to Blackninja, we'll do the same, we'll benchmark with 2 x 16x and record temps and FPS, then do the same with 2 x 8x and record.

 

[Dale]

love to watercool them, not sure the kit would fit though with them sitting so close together (not researched WC yet though)

This is my friends setup (he isn't registered on the forum - so I'm talking for him) - Myself, I have a 5970 with Q9550, my 5970 idles (well, sitting here in Windows, with 4 browsers and Outlook open) at 62 degrees, seen it hit 75-80 on load, so not concerned with my card.

We are just benchmarking in Heaven in 2 x 16x, then 2 x 8x - once we have longer bridge we'll also do 16x with 8x and post that as well to go with Blackninja's results.

 

[Dale]

One other thing I'll add, this fan with chassis that came with the case is designed for the cards to sit next to each other, I guess in either Cross or Trifire.

By moving the cards further apart into the 8x PCI-e slots this fan and mini-chassis whilst still fitting over the cards, covers up the power slots so you can't give the cards their required power leads.

Having the cards in the 8x PCI-e slots (but without the shown fan chassis) resulted in similar temperature gains, but they took fractionally longer to get there.

Obviously moving the cards (with the longer Crossfire bridges) to a single 16x and 8x PCI-e slot would also render the fan chassis useless, but would significantly increase the gap - still maybe the best long term solution, but this all just seems odd for this mobo (and case) to have the two cards put so close together (not that it has crashed yet).