SLI 'Sandwich' temps

[beardyweirdy]

Hi

I am thinking of adding another HD6950 in Xfire but can only utilise Pci slot 1 & 2, as slot 3 sits at the bottom of the case and is obscured.

Will they run too hot? Mine is the Twin frzr 3 edition which is relatively cool.

I tried it a while ago with GTX460s (which are hot anyway) but the top card hit 90 deg.

If not, to run SLI/xfire, I will have to get another 1366 board to replace the rampage 2.

Cheers

 

[harmony]

It is very important to have reference coolers for sandwitch SLI/CF. Non-reference coolers are likely to get the airflow blocked.

 

[beardyweirdy]

Thanks. Got the chance of an EVGA x58, relatively cheap but it seems crazy to get a new board for Xfire!

 

[harmony]

Do you have a pair of Twin Frozr III now? If so, I wouldn't recommend 3-way CF, as even if you get one more 6950 with reference cooler, you'll have at least one card of Twin Frozr III to suffer from getting airflow blocked (and hence high temperature and noise on this card).

 

[beardyweirdy]

Hi
No, just a single card at the mo - I was thinking about getting a ref card to run in xfire, but if you are correct the twin frzr will still run too hot.
I have just ordered Metro 2033 and was wondering what sort of Framerates I could expect with a single 6950 with an i7 950 clocked at 4.4ghz.

 

[Surveyor]

I have just ordered Metro 2033 and was wondering what sort of Framerates I could expect with a single 6950 with an i7 950 clocked at 4.4ghz.

This will give you an idea.

Lower some settings and you'll get better frame rates.

 

[harmony]

Hi
No, just a single card at the mo - I was thinking about getting a ref card to run in xfire, but if you are correct the twin frzr will still run too hot.
I have just ordered Metro 2033 and was wondering what sort of Framerates I could expect with a single 6950 with an i7 950 clocked at 4.4ghz.

Sorry I misunderstood your question. I thought you already have a pair of 6950s and you are looking forward to add a third one for 3-way SLI/CF.

If you only have a single 6950 TF3 now, then of course you could add another 6950 of reference cooler. Just install the reference card as the upper card so the TF3 will not get its airflow blocked, and you should be fine. (however the upper card may still be affected by the hot air dumped by the TF3 inside the case)

 

[beardyweirdy]

That's great, thanks for the replies. I was worried, as when I ran the 460s in SLI,the top card hit 90, but they were non reference and they had a tendency to run hot anyway, so I guess I might add another 6950 with the reference model in the top slot.

Is it common that the high end boards have slots close together?

 

[harmony]

Is it common that the high end boards have slots close together?

No. Only stupid boards / low-end / old-style boards have slots close together. Any reasonable board designed for SLI/CF should have a good PCI-E spacing.

For example, Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7 is a very bad choice, while EVGA X58 Classified E760/E770 is a very good choice.

 

[beardyweirdy]

Mine is a rampage 2 and I think they had water cooled cards in mind when designing the board. I think slot 1 & 2 seem very close, especially when you start looking at double width cards, which most are these days.

I am not sure that I will get hold of a reference 6950 now- other than Ebay.
Cheers