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SLI and noise

[TW]Fox

[TW]Fox

[TW]Fox

Man of Honour
Joined
17 Oct 2002
Posts
160,218
Hi guys,

Looking to add another GTX570 to my existing one as a stop-gap until the next generations of cards appear.

Currently, at idle (ie, when not gaming) my GTX570 is throttled to minimum fan speed and is inaudiable. This is good. I RMA'd a GTX480 because the idle fan noise was unacceptable.

Will this continue with two of them in there? Not so bothered about the noise when gaming.
 
Theyll be fine at idle regarding noise. When gaming, the top card will run a bit hotter than the bottom one. How much hotter will depend on the space between the cards. As the temps rise the fan speed and noise will rise a bit. Setting a custom fan profile can help to lower the noise to acceptable levels while maintaining decent temps.
 
Depends on air flow in there, on idle obviously it will be a few degrees hotter running two, but depends on the case you have as well?

Will your motherboard allow you to leave 1 pci-e slot in between the graphics cards to maximise heat escaping?
 
SLI is noisy. More heat = cards working harder = fans spinning faster. SLI and the noise was the reason I went water cooling. The coolers on the MSI Lightnings are supposed to be quiet...
 
At idle, the temps between each card will still be slightly different. But the noise shouldnt be a problem. My 470's at idle were quiet. Once in game though, it was time to don the noise cancelling headphones.
 
gregster said:
SLI is noisy. More heat = cards working harder = fans spinning faster. SLI and the noise was the reason I went water cooling. The coolers on the MSI Lightnings are supposed to be quiet...
Click to expand...

After playing Civ5 on a pair of matrix platinums at stock, the noise they made make my nvidia cards sound almost silent doing the same.
 
[TW]Fox;23620054 said:
When working, sure.

But sitting idle doing nothing?
Click to expand...

Spot on.

It wouldn't normaly bother me because most times I game with headphones on but late evening, I prefer speakers and the noise from the cards was too much for me.
 
I personally wouldn't bother with 570SLI
I hit VRAM problems in a few games such as BF3 and had to go to a single 580 instead... the 570's have loads of GPU grunt, plenty in fact, but the VRAM caused stuttering and slow downs which were only solved for me by going to a single 580 (less grunt but more VRAM)
 
Just seems like a really cost effective and cheap upgrade.

A used 570 is about 70 quid. A new 7950 is 3 times this and frankly I have no interest in spending that sort of money on a 2011 card, however much it might top the charts.

70 quid chucked at another 570 - even with the VRAM issues - seems like a no brainer to keep me busy until the next gen AMD and Nvidia stuff surfaces?

That said I have just noticed that with the way my case is configured at idle - ie all fans on absolute minimum, my 570 idles at 82c :eek:
 
Loose the msaa in bf3 and use an fxaa injector instead. Not only does it look better, you dont have to worry about a performance hit.

82c at idle, thats incredibly hot.
 
[TW]Fox;23620577 said:
Just seems like a really cost effective and cheap upgrade.

A used 570 is about 70 quid. A new 7950 is 3 times this and frankly I have no interest in spending that sort of money on a 2011 card, however much it might top the charts.

70 quid chucked at another 570 - even with the VRAM issues - seems like a no brainer to keep me busy until the next gen AMD and Nvidia stuff surfaces?
Click to expand...

it will depend on this; what games do you play?
for me, as an example, I could run BF3 on high on a single 570... going to SLI, I could still run high perfectly, however enabling Ultra meant that I got severe stuttering, so for me, at the time, there was zero benefit to going to SLI

I'm not sure where you are getting a 570 for £70 from as I think you could sell yours for £100 at least, and get a 580 for £200, which would give you some benefit

it does depends on what games you play though, and whether you couldn't just wait if you are waiting for the next cards to come out
 
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