MSI 290 CF -> EVGA 780 SLI

BaDBoY_uK · 1 May 2014 at 14:16

shankly1985 said:
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

Marine-RX179 · 1 May 2014 at 15:04

BaDBoY_uK said:
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

Who care if she likes it or not? Thought men like them "down and dirty"

BaDBoY_uK · 1 May 2014 at 21:32

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)

LtMatt · 1 May 2014 at 21:35

BaDBoY_uK said:
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)

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.

BaDBoY_uK · 1 May 2014 at 21:45

LtMatt said:
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

setter · 1 May 2014 at 21:45

When i was running non reference gtx 670's in the board in sig, (pretty tight spacing), removing all the pci brackets and mounting a 140mm fan on the exterior of the case helped lower temps a bit.

Shot of board spacing.

Ghetto mod.

The fan used there was a mark 1 attempt using a 120mm 1500 rpm model. Drop of 2c on the cards, replacing it with a 1400 rpm 140mm fan saw a drop of 5c.

BaDBoY_uK · 1 May 2014 at 21:56

^^Not a bad mod mate. Love it

Did it really bring temps down?

setter · 1 May 2014 at 21:59

Yep, in what was an extremely poor case for air intake, (bitfenix shinobi xl). Since moved to a better case. I used adhesive putty type pads to hold the fan in place, though a few small magnets glued to the fan would be even better.

Quite fond of the ol ghetto mods here, now if i can just work out one for cooling a rather toasty cpu.

BaDBoY_uK · 1 May 2014 at 22:03

I have a spare 1900rpm Scythe fan here

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

setter · 1 May 2014 at 22:07

Those look perfect, and tbh i wish i had found them at the time. Id try the 1900 rpm first, im assuming it's a 120mm? I found with this size though it didnt fully cover the vents at the rear, hence i switched to a 140mm. In the above shot you can still see the vents of the top card, the 140mm fan sat closer to the DVI cable covering this vent so allowing the air to be sucked out by the fan.

gerardfraser · 1 May 2014 at 22:49

I am running R9 290 Crossfire with reference and Non-Reference card in a Nvidia Haf-X case with a fan profile set up.Temp and fan speed on air seem to me to be pretty good.

Reference card on the bottom,case has 1x200mm side intake,1x240mm front intake,2x200mm top exhaust and 120mm to exhaust air out the back.

Maybe a new case might be a different approach and a little cheaper than water cooling cards.

Regular gaming BF4 max GPU fan speed 59%
1075/1354

BaDBoY_uK · 2 May 2014 at 08:54

The Carbide is cramped... but it is also sexy. I can water them and would like to, so it's not like I am being forced into it

Setter, the 120 will be good enough to pull the air from between the cards, where the bottom is generating heat. We'll see. I'd rather not buy a larger fan quite yet

setter · 2 May 2014 at 08:59

Hope it works for you mate, regarding the carbide 540. Its probably the best case for multi gpu setups. No hdd cages to block airflow. IM going to sli 780's myself soon so will also have to get a bit creative with cooling.

BaDBoY_uK · 2 May 2014 at 09:39

setter said:
Hope it works for you mate, regarding the carbide 540. Its probably the best case for multi gpu setups. No hdd cages to block airflow. IM going to sli 780's myself soon so will also have to get a bit creative with cooling.

I think if I didn't have the rad at the front, it'd be better

setter · 2 May 2014 at 10:00

Can the rad fit in the top of the case at all? This way you could have a wall of fans at the front with a clear airflow path.

aceytrixx · 2 May 2014 at 16:03

Saw this after you posted a link in the owners thread. I've ended up undervolting my cards. Not ideal but I so far haven't gone above 80 on the top card. When playing dark souls it was sitting at 80-81 now it's sitting at 70-72 so it's a made a decent difference. Other stuff I've tried has shown a similar drop. It's annoying but I can't afford water cooling right now and if I swap out my motherboard to have more space between them I'd probably want to wait at this point for a new CPU aswell to replace the 3570k I currently have.

LtMatt · 2 May 2014 at 16:08

With careful tweaking its possible to undervolt and overclock your cards at the same time, if you know what you're doing. For example...

2x290P in crossfire, typical stock clocks for 290's are 947/1250, mine come clocked at 975/1250. Through a lot of tweaking and testing i found im able to lower the core voltage to -0.031v in afterburer whilst having the core of both cards overclocked to 1050/1250. This is actually cooler and faster running than stock 975/1250 and stock voltage. I recommend you all experiement and try for yourself, can make a big difference.

You can also lower AUV voltage as well, this will help temps even further. If you start lowering AUX though its best to leave the memory clock at stock. I have my AUX running at -0.100mv and i have pretty good temps now on my reference cards with a much lower fan profile that typically needed to keep temps in the low 80's.

aceytrixx · 2 May 2014 at 16:24

LtMatt said:
With careful tweaking its possible to undervolt and overclock your cards at the same time, if you know what you're doing. For example...

2x290P in crossfire, typical stock clocks for 290's are 947/1250, mine come clocked at 975/1250. Through a lot of tweaking and testing i found im able to lower the core voltage to -0.031v in afterburer whilst having the core of both cards overclocked to 1050/1250. This is actually cooler and faster running than stock 975/1250 and stock voltage. I recommend you all experiement and try for yourself, can make a big difference.

You can also lower AUV voltage as well, this will help temps even further. If you start lowering AUX though its best to leave the memory clock at stock. I have my AUX running at -0.100mv and i have pretty good temps now on my reference cards with a much lower fan profile that typically needed to keep temps in the low 80's.

Mine are at -0.031 and at their stock of 977. I'll have an experiment with the core clock and then maybe try taking down the aux aswell.

LtMatt · 2 May 2014 at 16:34

aceytrixx said:
Mine are at -0.031 and at their stock of 977. I'll have an experiment with the core clock and then maybe try taking down the aux aswell.

Try the core at 1000, then 1025, then 1050. I'd be surprised if you can't at least reach 1025, assuming memory is at stock.

BaDBoY_uK · 2 May 2014 at 17:50

aceytrixx said:
Mine are at -0.031 and at their stock of 977. I'll have an experiment with the core clock and then maybe try taking down the aux aswell.

-0.031? I can only do mine in %

EDIT: I am lying. Sorted. Testing now