SLi Cooling question

[mattcrane]

Hi all,

I am in the process of slowly upgrading my PC, (hard to save up living on a service pension ), and next in line for the chopping block is my GPU/Monitor setup followed by my PSU and case.

I was looking at the reference 970's but as they went up in price this morning by £15 I am after suggestions for other options.

To start with it will be a single card setup so no major issues with heat there but I want to go Sli sooner rather than later and am concerned about heat in my existing case ,Antec 300, in the short term until I can afford a new case. Although right now it seems ok as it has 2 x 120mm intake at front, 1 x 140mm top exhaust and the H80i at the rear as push/pull exhaust.

I would prefer sticking with Nvidia as its what I have always had and don't fancy the heat/power issues with AMD.

That and one of my new monitors will be G-Sync

I understand that I will probably/certainly need a new PSU and definitely a new mobo to run Sli but they will be the last items to buy along with a new case, (love the look of the H440).

Would I be ok looking at these instead of the Reference design or would heat be an issue:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-010-GX

 

[Dirk Diggler]

Get a MoBo that allows x8 bus speed in slots 1 and 3. My board caters for this, and it makes a difference with the cards having a decent gap between them.

 

[mattcrane]

Motherboard wise I was just going to get the same as I have now but the SLI version.

Unfortunately I didn't realise that my existing board was Crossfire only when I bought it as a CPU/Board setup from OCUK

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-613-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=2811

 

[Dirk Diggler]

Slots seem to be well spaced on that board. I was concerned that I might need to water cool my cards, but decided against it.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=27408667&postcount=3749

 

[scubes]

The haf x is exellent for cooling the big fan on the side of the case .
Keeps my 470 ,s at 38 idle .

 

[mattcrane]

Slots seem to be well spaced on that board. I was concerned that I might need to water cool my cards, but decided against it.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=27408667&postcount=3749

Yeah trying to avoid a custom watercooling setup as it scares the crap out of me in every way especially cost

The haf x is exellent for cooling the big fan on the side of the case .
Keeps my 470 ,s at 38 idle .

I think the biggest problem with non reference may be the lack of space in my existing case might have to re think my purchase plan and bump a new case further up near the top of the list.