Xfire 7970's & 2500K

ChrisLandin · 18 Aug 2013 at 18:33

Hiya guys.

My current machine is in my sig. Over the last few months ive played / toyed with the idea of having a dedicated gaming rig and also a very competent htpc / gaming machine linked to the front room tv.

Today after much deliberation I think im going for just the one option, save on having 2 pc's and also put a bit of money back in the old bank account.

So my questions to you guys are this,

I was thinking of crossfiring a pair of 7970s and a 2500k and shoehorning it into my current matx lian li case.

At present I have in it a 240 & 120 rad with push pull on the 120. That's all that size permits. However im using alpenphon fans and they don't seem the best.

Temps sit at around 50 degrees on both the cpu and gpu whilst gaming at the moment. What are safe temps would you say?

Im thinking of swapping the current 120 rad for a thicker variant along the lines of a 60 mm xspc and swapping my fans for the 1850 rpm gentle typhoons, do you think this rad space would be sufficient? I personally think I will be cutting it very fine, but it should work I just don't think temps would be mindblowing.

I know I will probably have to upgrade my psu also but that's another debate.

Im going to be getting a 27" dell monitor with a high res, off the top of my head I cant remember the resolution but its higher than 1080p hence the second 7970, ive seen the said monitor in action (Mr.Tbag ) and its awesome

Anyway over to you guys for your help and advice

Oh I should have said im wanting to keep it all internal to the case ( yes im mad ) so no rad stands etc as the missus just wont go for it

Cheers

Mynight · 18 Aug 2013 at 18:41

Whats the current rad? Unless your current rad is like 30mm thick I cant imagine 60mm thick being a huge enough difference to get another 7970 in there.

50degrees should be safe but its defiantly on the high side.

What sort of load is that at? I know you say gaming but are we talking minesweeper or crysis?

I imagine another 7970 would throw your temps into the high or dangerous levels.

How much room do you have for a second card? Just wondering if aircooling the 2nd 7970 could be an option.

NoobCannon · 18 Aug 2013 at 18:45

your 2500k will unfortunately bottleneck xfire 7970's in games such as bf3 and crisis

for comparassion temps my cards reach 50'c ish whilst heavy gaming and my cpu around 65

I run my i7 3770k @ 4.7 and 2 x 7970 1200/1750 on a 360 + 240

Something Else · 18 Aug 2013 at 18:48

2x240 should be enough

also get a few more gigahertz out of your i5 to see some gains. 4.5 should be enough to relieve any bottleneck.

ChrisLandin · 18 Aug 2013 at 18:53

Mynight said:
Whats the current rad? Unless your current rad is like 30mm thick I cant imagine 60mm thick being a huge enough difference to get another 7970 in there.

50degrees should be safe but its defiantly on the high side.

What sort of load is that at? I know you say gaming but are we talking minesweeper or crysis?

I imagine another 7970 would throw your temps into the high or dangerous levels.

How much room do you have for a second card? Just wondering if aircooling the 2nd 7970 could be an option.

The current rad is a 120 xspc its 30mm RS I think is the model

ChrisLandin · 18 Aug 2013 at 18:54

NoobCannon said:
your 2500k will unfortunately bottleneck xfire 7970's in games such as bf3 and crisis

for comparassion temps my cards reach 50'c ish whilst heavy gaming and my cpu around 65

I run my i7 3770k @ 4.7 and 2 x 7970 1200/1750 on a 360 + 240

Seriously will my 2500k bottleneck a pair of 7970's? Severly? My board is a z77 board so I could upgrade with an ivy chip, what recommendations there?

NoobCannon · 18 Aug 2013 at 19:18

it depends what games you play really, BF3 and Crysis really need an i7 to make use of xfire 7970's, I specifically play bf3 and will be playing upcoming bf4

have a read thru this post,

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18521314&highlight=NoobCannon

I went from 3570k - 3770k and saw a large improvement only downside was a large increase in temperatures my i7 is a lot hotter running than my poor old i5!

hope this helps you some

Five.Stars · 18 Aug 2013 at 20:58

Could you not perhaps go with an externally mounted large radiator mounted on a rad stand connected via a couple of quick disconnects should you have to move the rig from time to time?

Can post a few pics of what it is like. I would say only problem with it being the fan cables also need to leave rig, so can perhaps appear a bit untidy although they can be tidied up with a bit of thought.

ChrisLandin · 20 Aug 2013 at 01:19

Five.Stars said:
Could you not perhaps go with an externally mounted large radiator mounted on a rad stand connected via a couple of quick disconnects should you have to move the rig from time to time?

Can post a few pics of what it is like. I would say only problem with it being the fan cables also need to leave rig, so can perhaps appear a bit untidy although they can be tidied up with a bit of thought.

No like in the op I want to keep it all internal to reduce the footprint on my desk. I agree a rad stand would probably be a great way to go but its not what im after. A pic or two of your setup may tempt me however :-)

Five.Stars · 20 Aug 2013 at 20:37

ChrisLandin said:
No like in the op I want to keep it all internal to reduce the footprint on my desk. I agree a rad stand would probably be a great way to go but its not what im after. A pic or two of your setup may tempt me however

I actually agree with you mate, I would prefer to have everything internal also, but having not long purchased an Antec P280, I then decided to go with water, which never really interested me. The P280 doesnt really lend itself to a great deal or rad space unfortunately. Could have a 240 in the roof and probably a 120 on the rear. Other than that there isn't much space. Could possibly have another 240 behind the hdd cages, but would need to be passively as no room for fans + rad. With 2 7970's and a toasty running i7920 i need a bit more rad space. Will post a few pics in a bit.

Also apologies, I didn't read the bit at bottom of the op or it simply didn't register lol.

Five.Stars · 20 Aug 2013 at 20:54

If you can excuse the cable management - was an awful lot tidier prior to me stripping down to put 2nd 7970 in. Have since decided I am gona change up to a Haswell based system so no point tidying cables as will be stripping down in a week or 2 again.

Tonester0011 · 20 Aug 2013 at 21:05

I had a 3770k and two 7970s on a 60mm 360+240 and was getting load temps depending on ambient of between 45-55, that's with the fans pretty low (800-1200rpm controlled by the Aquasuite on a curve)

Having two 7970s and the 2500k on a single 240 and 120 will probably be too much for them, you could always go the route of thicker high FPI rads to increase surface area without having to expand outside the case.

As for the potential bottleneck, on some games (BF3, Crysis 3 and probably BF4) your cards will not be running full wack but if you're playing on a 60hz screen it's somewhat of a moot point as the CPU is fine for over 60hz.

http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Battl...ld-3-Multiplayer-Tipps-CPU-Benchmark-1039293/

Edit: @1440p res you really wont have to worry about potential CPU bottlenecks, the extra pixels will provide the much needed load on the GPUs to keep them working at over 90% load

Five.Stars · 20 Aug 2013 at 21:37

Tonester0011 said:
I had a 3770k and two 7970s on a 60mm 360+240 and was getting load temps depending on ambient of between 45-55, that's with the fans pretty low (800-1200rpm controlled by the Aquasuite on a curve)

Having two 7970s and the 2500k on a single 240 and 120 will probably be too much for them, you could always go the route of thicker high FPI rads to increase surface area without having to expand outside the case.

As for the potential bottleneck, on some games (BF3, Crysis 3 and probably BF4) your cards will not be running full wack but if you're playing on a 60hz screen it's somewhat of a moot point as the CPU is fine for over 60hz.

http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Battl...ld-3-Multiplayer-Tipps-CPU-Benchmark-1039293/

Yeah those are similar temps to what I see with a slim 240 and a 45mm 360. Usually see the gpu's sit mid 40's with occasionally getting in to low 50's if something really taxes them i.e extreme aa on sleeping dogs.

I would say 240 and 360 is the minimum you would ideally want, although you could perhaps get away with 2 240's. i don't think I would do any heavy overclocking with just 240's.

You could probably manage on a 240 and a 120 IF noise wasn't an issue (for example if you game with headphones) and got some 1850 Scythe GT's or something which will push more air and ran them at full pelt during gaming. You still wouldn't get amazing temps even with fans at 100% but I'd say it would be do-able of not ideal.

ChrisLandin · 20 Aug 2013 at 22:56

Tonester0011 said:
I had a 3770k and two 7970s on a 60mm 360+240 and was getting load temps depending on ambient of between 45-55, that's with the fans pretty low (800-1200rpm controlled by the Aquasuite on a curve)

Having two 7970s and the 2500k on a single 240 and 120 will probably be too much for them, you could always go the route of thicker high FPI rads to increase surface area without having to expand outside the case.

As for the potential bottleneck, on some games (BF3, Crysis 3 and probably BF4) your cards will not be running full wack but if you're playing on a 60hz screen it's somewhat of a moot point as the CPU is fine for over 60hz.

http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Battl...ld-3-Multiplayer-Tipps-CPU-Benchmark-1039293/

Edit: @1440p res you really wont have to worry about potential CPU bottlenecks, the extra pixels will provide the much needed load on the GPUs to keep them working at over 90% load

Thankyou for that mate. Music to my ears

Just got to start pulling my loop apart now to fit the new fat 120 rad im going to order from ocuk.

ChrisLandin · 20 Aug 2013 at 23:28

Right I need to know how to post pics to the forum rules, if anybody can help that would be awesome.

You guys are no help to my bank balance I tell you. After a quick bit of measuring up I think I can get another 240 rad into my case. Its going to take some serious modding of the case, but then again its never stopped me chopping a case up before haha.

I think I have 2 options:

1) is to introduce a 30mm 240 rad into the roof of the case with 2 fans, there is no chance of push pull I don't think

2) is to use a thicker 240 rad around the 50mm thickness BUT I would only be able to use 1 fan as where its going to sit with a thicker rad will eat into 2 of my 5.25 drive bays if I used 2 fans.

Ive already marked the top of the case with pencil for potential cutting ;-O

Tonester0011 · 21 Aug 2013 at 00:11

For pictures: http://imageshack.us/
They resize the pictures for you, maximum allowed under forum rules is 1280x1000 iirc? I just use the default 1024*768 (17")

Two 30mm 240 rads offers more surface area than 1 50mm rad providing they're the same FPI, so will give slightly better cooling potential, but would mean more work on your part both modding and routing the loop. Push pull doesn't make enough of a difference to worry about imho.

Having two thinner 240 rads also allows you to use these high FPI rads: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=WC-004-BX&groupid=962&catid=1523&subcat=1525

ChrisLandin · 21 Aug 2013 at 00:37

That blackice rad is just a bit large unfortunately, we are talking mm's here. Im going for the xspc ex 240 rad. That will complement my other one.

I just need to work out now, res placement as im fancying possibly changing my bay res to a tube res so I can use my fan controller.

Decisions decisions