Possible GTX 780 3 way SLi setup ?

[Gripen90]

So my plan has from the start been going 3-way SLi with GTX 780 . However the plan was going with 3 cards with the reference cooler, but now I've gotten an offer on a nearly unused MSI GTX 780 TwinFrozr Gaming OC 3GB card for £404, and saying yes to this is very tempting.
However it uses the the TwinFrozr cooler, and I'm wondering if the type of cooler will cope with a 3 way SLi setup ? and due to the nature of the cooler and the card as far I can see can only be bottom mounted in a 3 way SLi setup since there is a bar from the cooler that will interfere with a standard 3 way SLi bridge that isn't flexible.
You can see what I mean on this picture.

I have the setup like this now, and with the MSI GTX 780 TwinFrozr I would place that as bottom card and the two reference card in the upper PCI-E ports. Although do you think there will be enough "breathing" room for the TwinFrozr cooler to cool the GTX 780 ?



I just want to hear if any of you have tried 3 way SLi configuration like this and if it's problem free ?

 

[Gripen90]

Yea I think there will be ok breathing room for the TwinFrozr cooler - I just had a tape measure inside and theres around 2.3cm breathing space down to the PSU. I'll see if I can snatch that MSI GTX 780 TwinFrozr Gaming OC 3GB card and make a good deal !

 

[Gripen90]

I would try before you buy, things may get a bit toasty with one card dumping all it's heat into the case.

Hmm unfortunately that's not really possible since we live to far from eachother and I doubt he'd agree to ship the card just for testing first. So it would be a purchase and then selling it again if it's a no go.
I didn't think about that about the bottom card dumping heat into the case, eventhough it's highly ventilated (8x120mm & 2x80mm fans).

I've seen another guy running 3x EVGA GTX 780 ACX in 3-way SLi, and asked him what kind of temps he's getting, but he hasn't answered.

After running 3 Titans on air for a while, I would say heat will be a issue.(IMO)

Mine where hitting mid to high 80's and that was with good air flow and all cards expelling heat out the the case

If your going to get a 3rd card I'd get one to match your existing cards.

Yea it's was quite the same with my 3x GTX 670 reference cards before the max temp was about 85 centigrades for the hottest of the cards.

Hmm should I try or not... it's not like many are selling 780 reference cards at the moment and £400 is tempting.

 

[Gripen90]

Your best bet is to put the twin frozr on the top and a ref card on the bottom so the bottom cards sucks air in and dumps it from the case out the rear whilst the top card isnt kicking out warm air into another cards path,so to speak. Those twin frozr cards are awesome by the way. Got mine yesterday and I love it! Its quiet as a mouse and has no problem reaching 1200mhz and 7ghz mem.

That cannot be done unfortunately. You see the metal bar on the twinfrozr card will interfere with the non flexible SLI bridge so i can't mount the sli bridge so far i see.

 

[Gripen90]

Do you own a Dremel?

Unfortunately not. But cutting would also void the warranty.

Thinking about it, paying the extra for another reference GTX 780 could be the best move. Not only would you avoid excessive heat problems, it also gives you the option of going watercooled at a future date.

I have given the heat a thought but theoretically then shouldn't two GTX 780 twin frozr card then disperse a lot more heat into the case than one Gtx780 twin frozr and two GTX 780 reference cards ?

As for H2O cooling in my system that will not happen since I'm paranoid about water and electricity together.

 

[Gripen90]

In one of my PCs I have two Asus Matrix Platinum HD 7970s on a RIVE mobo which leaves a gap beween them. When running flat out I leave the side panel off as the heat generated with it on makes all the tubing to my CPU waterloop sag and the level in the res drops noticeably.

If you run 3 cards together with no gaps the heat build up could be quite large. The only to find out though is to try it unless someone else has already done it.

I have run sli with gtx 460 windforce and gtx 660 twin frozr in a sound dampned fractal r3 case where the temps were ok. Around 60 centigrades in load...but it may be different with these hotter cards. I haven't found any one with experience from mixing cards with reference and third party coolers, so I guess I'll take the jump and try setting the msi gtx 780 twin frozr as bottom card and then watch the temperatures for all the cards.

 

[Gripen90]

So I said yes to the card for £400. I'll mount it at the bottom and will monitor the temperatures and check if the hot air will get out of the case fast and not build up any exces heat inside.

 

[Gripen90]

I think putting the TwinFrozr card at the bottom is ideal. I run 2x GTX 660 TwinFrozr card in a sound dampned Fractal Define R3 case and have 2x120m intake fans, 1x 120mm bottom intake fan and one rear 1x120m rear exhaust fans. Both card dissipate hot air into the case but the temperatures are still very good. Both GPU's around 65 centigrades in load.

Well I'm giving it a go nevertheless. Putting the Twinfrozr in the bottom position and then I hope the 2x 120mm exhaust fans in the top of the case and the 1x 120mm in the rear will be able to pull out the hot air quickly enough so the case won't heat up more than normal.

 

[Gripen90]

Hmm weird and annoying situation. Seems like the seller cheats and stalls me with bad excuses. Card should have been shipped Monday, then delayed to Tuesday, then I don't hear from him until yesterday that writes he hope he can ship today. Our deal was I would get the card Wednesday at the latest. Luckily I paid via PayPal so now I'm in the process of claiming my £400 back.
It's very strange since it was he from whom I bought my other MSI GTX 780 reference card with no issues.

 

[Gripen90]

Hi,

I've been thinking 3-way on 780s as well. I've had 8800 Ultras, GTX 280s, GTX 285s and GTX 580s in 3-way SLI. Though I never got the 580s to work properly in 3-way SLI, they were overheating all the time regardless of fan speeds or fans in the case. But on the other hand it was not a great surprise as the previous setups had run at nearly 100 degrees C anyway while gaming..and yes, that was normal for them.

Some thoughts...

This had kept me thinking if it's worth the trouble again as 780s tend to throttle easily in 2-way already if not kept at manual fan speed. Probably would need a custom BIOS to set the fan at 100 % instantly under load. Another thing is that in our rather small apartment, the whole apartment would get very warm after 20 minutes . I have Asus 780 reference cards. Also going from 2-way to 3-way is sometimes a punch into face, as it needs a substantial improvement in case cooling and a hefty PSU.

I only game at 1920x1200 but the benefit of 3-way SLI for me has been the increased minimum FPS and huge gains in particular games. Some games on the other hand...

I am also thinking about going to a 120 Hz monitor later on.

You'd get more response if you post your own thread regarding that topic

 

[Gripen90]

Sure thing, but I was just thinking out aloud. Actually interested to see how your setup would turn out if you get the third card soon, and how are your temps

I was not going to hijack your thread

No problem. I can tell you that I've too been running 3x GTX 280, 3x GTX 470, 3x GTX 580, 3x GTX 680 and all of reference cooled and all of them them have been in the 85 centigrade range with max load in my case

As for the GTX 780 SLi haven't seen any throttling as such. The GPU's max out at 80 centigrades due to GPU Boost 2.0 - that both good an bad, since the rpm is quite low and noise if very low too. If nVidia had made a more aggressive fan setting the cards would easily idle aroudn 70~75 centigrades with just a few more rpms.

As for my last card - the seller finally reacted. He has shipped the card albeit much later than agreed upon, so I'm actually a bit upset and mad at him for that and not informing me. But I got the tracking code for the parcel, and I'm expecting the MSI GTX 780 Gaming card to turn up monday, and then I'll have it installed and tested. When all that's done if get back to you all with benchmarks and temperatures and pictures I'm exited to see how 3-way SLi will work out with 2 reference and 1 non-reference card.

 

[Gripen90]

19/8-2013 update. So it's installed - temperature wise I don't know if there would be any difference if I used 3x reference coolers because temperature wise I'm getting around the same temperatures as I did with 3x GTX 670 reference cards. Anyhow I thought I'd just share some of the previous results etc with the new.

Temperatures.
Load - 3 runs of Unigine Valley benchmark: Top 82°C - Middle 86°C - Bottom 79°C
Idle - after idling 20min on desktop: Top 35°C - Middle 33°C - Bottom 30°C

Quick comparison:

3Dmark11 performance
GTX 670 TriSLI vs GTX 780 SLI
http://www.3dmark.com/compare/3dm11/6833664/3dm11/6857435
GTX 780 SLi vs TriSLI
http://www.3dmark.com/compare/3dm11/6857435/3dm11/7036149


3Dmark11 Extreme
GTX 670 TriSLI vs GTX 780 SLI
http://www.3dmark.com/compare/3dm11/6724831/3dm11/6857489
GTX 780 SLi vs TriSLI
http://www.3dmark.com/compare/3dm11/6857489/3dm11/7035803


3Dmark Firestrike
GTX 670 TriSLI vs GTX 780 SLI
http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/454306/fs/644411
GTX 780 SLi vs TriSLI
http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/644411/fs/778820

Unigine Valley 1.0 2560x1440
GTX 670 3-way SLi

GTX 780 SLi

GTX 780 3-way SLI

Unigine Valley 1.0 1920x1080
GTX 670 3-way SLi

GTX 780 SLI

GTX 780 3-way SLI (hmm looks like a CPU limitation at that resolution)

Unigine Heaven 4.0 2560x1440
GTX 670 3-way SLi

GTX 780 SLi

GTX 780 3-way SLI

Unigine Heaven 4.0 1920x1080
GTX 670 3-way SLi

GTX 780 SLi

GTX 780 3-way SLI

Negatives
Noise has improved again, but it's still quieter than the 3x GTX 670's were. I guess that's the cost of 3 way SLi - it's not as silent as SLI.
Hopefully things can improve a bit when I get a Cooler Master CM 690 III case soon.

Positives
Yay 3-way SLi again. I've been running 3-way SLI setups permanently since 2009. Lots of power and will last me a good while before I'll even consider upgrading again.

Future
I'll be getting the new Cooler Master CM 690 III (hopefully a nVidia Edtion when it comes), and that should greatly improve cablemanagement and airflow cooling. Then I will start looking into OC'ing the 3930K past 3.8GHz and also OC the graphics.

 

[Gripen90]

Thanks for the results!

A bit toasty - maybe but that's with default fan profile?

If I'll get the third card I might do this (this worked with my GTX 580s on RIVE).

The only problem is that the front panel headers are under the third card and it's a very tight fit, it barely works with the headers connected..

Thank you. Yea it the default fan profile. However I have an zalman fanmate on my 120mm on the side panel and I just turned the RPM's up a notch so now the temperatures are about 2-3 centigrades lower on all cards (I updated to the new temperatures in the previous post).

Than setup would be pretty sweet and you have enough room for the cards to "breath" properly