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HD 5870 Crossfire Temps

sckam

sckam

sckam

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Joined
12 Oct 2009
Posts
279
How are the temps for those running these cards in Crossfire.

I have a ud3r + hd 5870 (think it has the same pci spacing as ud5r and the gigabyte extreme) and am thinking of adding another but have read that the temps on one of the cards is about 10 degrees higher than the other.

Have the crossfire HD5870 users found this to be the case? Moving to an hd 5970 is not possible as my case is to small.
 
I can confirm that. But it depends on your PCI-e spacing.

Initially when I had a single 5870 it was running around 31 degrees idle.
When I added the 2nd 5870 underneath the temps on the 1st card went up to around 42-45 idle. The 2nd card ran at 31 idle. This is is all due to the Rampage board having the 2 1st 2 pci-e 16x slots close together, in order to allow a 3rd pci-e 16x slot to fit. The result is the fan on the 1st card is actually blocked by the 2nd card, forcing the 1st card to rely on pulling air in fron the front intakes.

Looking at the pic of your gigabyte board you will have the same situation with temps I think. Nothing can be done about it really. And I don't think it's an issue. I use MSI Afterburner and both fans speed up when they need to anyway. I have not seen any throttling or either card going over 85 degrees.
 
Thanks, when the blocked fan speeds up does this drop temps much on that card? Are you not able to use the other pci slot on your card with a different crossfire connector?
 
Generally speaking the temps on the top card are 5-6 degrees warmer always even when the fan speeds up. But it's not an issue for me. Noticed no problems when gaming.

I can't use the bottom PCI-e slot because it's positioned on the edge of the motherboard opposite the cases 7th pci slot, and as my case like 99% cases only has 7 slots, a dual slot cooler won't fit. I'd need to get a case with 8 pci-e slots. The crossfire connector would probably fit though as it's pretty long to begin with. Plus on the rampage the 3rd pci-e slot only works at 4x unless you are running 3 cards, then it runs at 8x.

So with all 3 slots populated you get 16x-8x-8x, or 16x-16x-1x, with the 1st 2 populated you get 16x-16x, and with 1 and 3 populated you get 16x-4x. Sucks.
 
True :)

To the OP. It stands to reason on any motherboard where the 2 pcie slots don't have an extra space between them ala Asus PK6, that where the bottom card blocks the top card's fan, the top card will always run hotter. 10 degrees or so as confirmed by myself and Virus. I wouldn't worry about it on your Gigabyte. The card can handle it :D
 
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I guess it doesn't throttle until 95 degrees, possibly higher. Just set the fan profile you want with MSI Afterburner (get it off Guru3d). It allows you to set 8 stages depending on temps. I just set my fans to run 70% if the temps get to 85 degrees. And obviously lower rpm's for temps below 85. Works a treat.
 
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