Hey guys, I am really hopeless right now, maybe you can help me out in any form, even if its only a tiny bit of advice. Sorry for the slighty large wall of text!
Preface:
So I am rocking a ft02 for about 2 years now and so far its an amazing case.
I got a i7 4790k OC'ed to just 4,2Ghz (more not needed for gaming imho)
I have a Noctua D15 CPU cooler, installed a Noctua 120mm airflow fan as exhaust and I have everything + the 3 AP 180mm intake fans hooked up to the mainboard via WPM and custom fancurves via software. Everything is tied to the CPU temperature.
Everything runs really cool and even under load (40%-60% gaming) the CPU stays below 60°C while the fan is dead silent around 50% speed. The 3 AP180s also stay silent while running around 50% fanspeed.
GPU come into play:
I have 2x MSI 980 Gaming 4G in SLI installed. I chose them mainly because of the horizontal heatpipe and vertical heatsink fin placement.
On 100% load, the main card runs up to 79°C while the fan sits around 80% fanspeed.
The fan is barely noticeable, temps under 80°C is what I aimed for, so everything is good and I am happy.
Reviews state that this card runs at 67°C under load and I think the difference comes a bit from the rotated motherboard but moreso because the 3 AP180mm intake fans are only running at 40%-50% fanspeed because they are tied to CPU temp!
I have found no way of tying the fans to the GPU temperature as I am using the Asus AI Suite 3 for the fan controls which came with the motherboard which doesn't read the GPU temps. This is (at the moment) not much of my concern as I am happy with the way it is.
Now on topic, the 1080 Ti:
I think about upgrading my GPUs. Mainly because 4G of VRAM isn't enough these day and also because I want to be able to play Star Citizen with everything maxed out in VR (or 3D atleast). I have a ROG PG278Q 1440p monitor and I game a lot in 3D Vision which lets SLI scale even better.
The thing is, SLI or not, ALL the custom 1080 Ti cards so far have vertical heatpipes and horizontal heatsink fins.
The ONLY exception so far that I could spot is the MSI 1080 Ti Armor which apparently is bad at cooling (>80°C) in normal computer cases (Some say that it is a bug with the fan not getting to 100% speed, I can only hope). I found no official reviews or tests but there are 2 reddit posts for reference:
https://www.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/631o8g/msi_1080_ti_armor_impressions/
https://www.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/62bcen/my_1080_ti_armor_oc_results/
And the Founders Edition with blower style is even worse at cooling, thermal throttles and of course is loud!
I suspect the custom blower models to not be substantially better. Reviews have yet to show up.
The problem:
Apparently there is NO good 1080 Ti card to choose for a 90° rotated motherboard at the moment!
I need a bit of advice on what to do, as I'm having trouble deciding. MAYBE some of you even have experience with rotated builds and GPU cooling? Also, I only have 2 Slots in space between the cards for SLI. The good 1080 Tis are 2,5 slots high, so only 0,5 slots of breathing space instead of 1,0 right now with 980s.
Possible Solutions (ranked from highest to lowest risk (subjectively)):
Preface:
So I am rocking a ft02 for about 2 years now and so far its an amazing case.
I got a i7 4790k OC'ed to just 4,2Ghz (more not needed for gaming imho)
I have a Noctua D15 CPU cooler, installed a Noctua 120mm airflow fan as exhaust and I have everything + the 3 AP 180mm intake fans hooked up to the mainboard via WPM and custom fancurves via software. Everything is tied to the CPU temperature.
Everything runs really cool and even under load (40%-60% gaming) the CPU stays below 60°C while the fan is dead silent around 50% speed. The 3 AP180s also stay silent while running around 50% fanspeed.
GPU come into play:
I have 2x MSI 980 Gaming 4G in SLI installed. I chose them mainly because of the horizontal heatpipe and vertical heatsink fin placement.
On 100% load, the main card runs up to 79°C while the fan sits around 80% fanspeed.
The fan is barely noticeable, temps under 80°C is what I aimed for, so everything is good and I am happy.
Reviews state that this card runs at 67°C under load and I think the difference comes a bit from the rotated motherboard but moreso because the 3 AP180mm intake fans are only running at 40%-50% fanspeed because they are tied to CPU temp!
I have found no way of tying the fans to the GPU temperature as I am using the Asus AI Suite 3 for the fan controls which came with the motherboard which doesn't read the GPU temps. This is (at the moment) not much of my concern as I am happy with the way it is.
Now on topic, the 1080 Ti:
I think about upgrading my GPUs. Mainly because 4G of VRAM isn't enough these day and also because I want to be able to play Star Citizen with everything maxed out in VR (or 3D atleast). I have a ROG PG278Q 1440p monitor and I game a lot in 3D Vision which lets SLI scale even better.
The thing is, SLI or not, ALL the custom 1080 Ti cards so far have vertical heatpipes and horizontal heatsink fins.
The ONLY exception so far that I could spot is the MSI 1080 Ti Armor which apparently is bad at cooling (>80°C) in normal computer cases (Some say that it is a bug with the fan not getting to 100% speed, I can only hope). I found no official reviews or tests but there are 2 reddit posts for reference:
https://www.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/631o8g/msi_1080_ti_armor_impressions/
https://www.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/62bcen/my_1080_ti_armor_oc_results/
And the Founders Edition with blower style is even worse at cooling, thermal throttles and of course is loud!
I suspect the custom blower models to not be substantially better. Reviews have yet to show up.
The problem:
Apparently there is NO good 1080 Ti card to choose for a 90° rotated motherboard at the moment!
I need a bit of advice on what to do, as I'm having trouble deciding. MAYBE some of you even have experience with rotated builds and GPU cooling? Also, I only have 2 Slots in space between the cards for SLI. The good 1080 Tis are 2,5 slots high, so only 0,5 slots of breathing space instead of 1,0 right now with 980s.
Possible Solutions (ranked from highest to lowest risk (subjectively)):
- Get 2x MSI 1080 Ti Armor and hope for a 'fanspeed' fix.
- Get 2x 1080 Ti which have good reviews (MSI Gaming or Asus Strix)
- Get 2x 1080 Ti blower style or hybrid AIO (where to fix the radiator in FT02??)
- Forget SLI and get only one 1080 Ti
- Forget the 1080 Ti and wait for the next generation
solves everything
