MSI 290 CF -> EVGA 780 SLI

[BaDBoY_uK]

I am seriously considering moving from the MSI 290s to the EVGA 780s. The only reason is due to the temps in my case.

I cannot afford water right now but plan to do it next month. But the top card reaches 90degC after 10 mins due to the Carbide and my current Eisberg watercooler setup.

Is it worth it? Or should I hold off until I can get them under water? It seems the XPSC 780 blocks are cheaper too

I would go for blower style fans for now, rather than the ACX versions

But I'd pay an extra 200-300 on top now to change (after selling these) and buying new.

Madness?

 

[BaDBoY_uK]

Thanks for your comments guys

I think I can hold out. TBH I am just impatient. My top card has hit 95 on a warm day and it throttles. Saying that, I still get 120fps on BF4

I'll wait until next month and get the 2 x Rev2 blocks and a nice pump. In the meantime I may take Matt's advice and getto up some fans - God knows I have done it before

Spoiler

 

[BaDBoY_uK]

BTW with these, am I best trying to exhaust air away from them or push cold air onto them???

 

[BaDBoY_uK]

^^Forget that pic - that's with a 6990+6970 for ages ago haha!

This is a current pic

So, where should I getto some fans to?

 

[BaDBoY_uK]

Water it is then... The top will have to cope for now... I may swap them every weekend to give them a breather haha

 

[BaDBoY_uK]

How does one change the throttle temp of the card?

 

[BaDBoY_uK]

Yep, no option for me

With summer approaching, I feel we will see a few more of these threads. If you can water cool next month, do that Badboy and do what you can to keep the cards cool till then.

Yeah will do

 

[BaDBoY_uK]

Had a lil' play and stuck the second 290 in the third slot. It runs PCIE 3.0 but 4x. Checked Heaven and it lost 30 points. Tombraider bench lost 2fps

Both temps never go above 80degC now max load and clocked to 1025MHz

Probably keeping this setup until I can go water

 

[BaDBoY_uK]

Sounds good. Thought you said you have had huge performance issue with one being in the third slot so didn't look into it further.

Even with one in x4, on PCI-E 3.0 would mean it's roughly equal to x8 on PCI-E 2.0, so the performance lost shouldn't be to bad (as you yourself already found out from your bench). With the temp at sub 80C and card no longer throttling, you can probably overclock the cards a little further to make up for the lost performance as well.

I think it was someone else who said they suffered with performance loss. Maybe because it was PCIE 2.0

And yes, I can probably hit 1050MHz with +25mV added. We'll see. Only have to survive until next pay day anyway when I can grab some real WC stuff

 

[BaDBoY_uK]

P.S. The backplate is close to melting after three rounds of Heaven. Crazy!!!!

 

[BaDBoY_uK]

Error! Error! Does not compute!

Full WCing will cost me around £500 mate after I buy rev 2 blocks for the GPUs

 

[BaDBoY_uK]

Is taking the BP off easy? By the looks of it, the front fan would come off too? Or am I going mad?

 

[BaDBoY_uK]

Should just be a case of sitting the cooler on a flat surface, unscrewing the cooler screws(NOT the gpu core screws, iirc they put void stickers on one of them), lift off the plate and re-do the screws.

Noted, cheers

If you still getting high temps even with card in bottom slot. I would question your case fan layout.
How are the fans in your 540 setup?

Front 6 x in push pull as intake but blowing across my 360 rad. Top two as push exhaust blowing across the 240 rad. Rear single 120 as exhaust. All Scythe 1900rpm 110CFM fans. All on 30W channel fan controller. I think 80degC is pretty good for 3 x loops of Heaven at 1025MHz on this GPU... no?

 

[BaDBoY_uK]

Yeah guess so three runs heaven 80c is very good tbh didn't know you done three runs. Plus most games wont even stress the cards temp wise that much, BF4 for me my cards stay around 65c This also @977/1250 I see you running 1025 so that will increase temps.

Yeah BF4 mainly Ultra using Mantle, 2560x1440 never goes below 120fps cap and also only uses 66% each GPU... which is annoying haha

 

[BaDBoY_uK]

if it only uses 66% per core downclock and undervolt your cards!!! run them at 800/900 and i reckon it'll take a loads of heat out

Not a bad thought really... may try it. I don't like the card being in the bottom slot tbh as it is very close to my HDD

 

[BaDBoY_uK]

Yeah I own the 540 and because my gpu in bottom I moved my hard drive into the back of case ghetto zip tie

Yeah I may have to do that. But I do not want her in the 4x slot. It doesn't sit well with me. She doesn't like it. She told me...

I may move her back up to full 8x and then see if I can downclock to pay day

 

[BaDBoY_uK]

I bottled it and went back to the 8x slot. But downclocked to 900MHz for now and still BF4 runs at 100fps max cap (changed from 120)

 

[BaDBoY_uK]

Lowering the voltage will give you the biggest drop in temps. I get virtually no temp difference on the same voltage between 975/1250 and 1050/1250.

Testing now. Mine defaults to +25

 

[BaDBoY_uK]

^^Not a bad mod mate. Love it

Did it really bring temps down?

 

[BaDBoY_uK]

I have a spare 1900rpm Scythe fan here

Also http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CM-000-PL