Man, it is sooo hot.

[Slytat]

Originally Posted by MikeC

I respect people that try to come up with solutions in a challenging situation. In my opinion, more of this type of thinking is needed instead of the constant bashing that we continue to see (about the 480 GTX or any other product).

Keep us posted on what you're considering. Even if you decide to forego an upgrade, that's OK. At least you're thinking things through before admitting to defeat

I really wanted a pair of these but I am frightened at the thought of them in a closed case environment given the things I have seen and read in the past 24 hours.

I will also be interested to see what Lee and others come up with but I'm still going to be surprised if anything less than LC is needed for SLI in a RW environment.

[MikeC]

Originally Posted by Revs

Extraordinary measures? wow

Heh. Maybe I'm being too critial. I've been watching dramas lately, like "Clear and Present Danger" and "Executive Decision."

Keeping the heat pipes cool seems to be an effective way to cool the GPU. But in a closed case, I'm not sure how you could get cooler air blowing directly on the heat pipes.

Maybe if you had an opening on the side of the case. Kind of what like Intel recommended to keep their Pentium 4 running cool

[MikeC]

Originally Posted by Slytat

I really wanted a pair of these but I am frightened at the thought of them in a closed case environment given the things I have seen and read in the past 24 hours.

I will also be interested to see what Lee and others come up with but I'm still going to be surprised if anything less than LC is needed for SLI in a RW environment.

I agree. There's no substitute for "real-world" feedback from unbiased forum members...

[Slytat]

Originally Posted by slaWter

I'm not going to water cool GFX cards again. It was one of the most useless things I've ever done

I don't think that SLI will be a problem in a good ventilated case. No need to be pessimistic here.

I hope you're right and if I see some forum members getting it going without the need for LC I might be swayed but I am still sceptical given what I've seen so far.

I will however, remain objective throughout.

[enoteware]

evga is selling some waterblock versions - anyone have a recommendation of what to pair it with radiator etc?

[Bman212121]

Originally Posted by turdhat

Hearing warnings about not touching the exposed heatpipes etc are really bugging me. This thing is bound to raise case temps by a fair amount unless you have a damn wind tunnel (which I do). I am for sure going to bag a 480 once some of the dust settles.

Glad I have my pc in the room directly behind my home theater setup. I dont have to hear it that way so I will crank that fan and have plenty of high rpm fans running in the case as well. Just ran all my cables via a small conduit I made right to my entertainment center. The only pc components that are in the room with me are the receiver for the mouse and key board and the outboard dvd drive.

Maybe we should consider a little fire safety training before we jump on these cards !

The 8800GTX has a metal bar that runs along the top of the card. If you touch that while it's under load it will burn you as well.

Oh and... TWSS...

Originally Posted by MikeC

I respect people that try to come up with solutions in a challenging situation. In my opinion, more of this type of thinking is needed instead of the constant bashing that we continue to see (about the 480 GTX or any other product).

Keep us posted on what you're considering. Even if you decide to forego an upgrade, that's OK. At least you're thinking things through before admitting to defeat

To me it seems a little silly that you have to brainstorm ways to make these things work. Most people agree that are going to run too hot for them, so it just makes you wonder why Nvidia didn't put a better cooler on them in the first place.

I will say that I probably enjoy building computers as much as actually playing games on them, so it does provide an added benefit I guess. Kind of like a car guy trying to stick a V8 into a car that was only meant for a 4 banger.

My stacker would work just fine with it if I upgraded the 2 x 120mm side panel fans to some 120mm deltas.

The heat is the most problem for me, I am not one for watercooling and my case doesn't have a vent on the side so temps would sky rocket...

[Slytat]

Originally Posted by DarthBeavis

Feser 480 radiator with low speed fans. I would never use any GPU 200 series or above without H20 but that is just me. My GPUs even in quad sli never go much above 45 c.

My Tri-SLI rarely goes over 85 (except with STALKER : COP) on air.

Admittedly, I do have a few Antec spot fans directly on the cards as well as the case fans.

From what I've seen, that wouldn't put a dent in 1 x 480 in a closed case.

I don't doubt that these cards will shine in an LC environment.

@ Magus - The heat is the single reason I won't buy 480s. I don't care about the power consumption etc but the heat is a major concern, especially if you want to use more than one card (outside of LC of course).

[nekrosoft13]

Originally Posted by MikeC

I haven't tried the 480 GTX in a closed case and I believe that extraordinary measures will need to be taken to keep the GPU cool in that situation.

could you try that? I really would like to know how it runs.

[Slytat]

Originally Posted by nekrosoft13

could you try that? I really would like to know how it runs.

Ditto

If it's hitting 95c in an open environment in less than a minute, I'm guessing it's not going to be long before it's over 100c in a closed case

[Xion X2]

93C is waaay too hot for a card to be running while gaming. At that rate, they won't last that long, despite what either Nvidia or ATI say. I've seen too high a failure rate over the years from cards than ran at those kinds of temps on a daily basis.

The best way to keep a card like the 480 cool (aside from H20) is to vent the side of your case and to put some good 120mm fans right there on the side, blowing into the card(s). I've knocked 12-15c off cards before by doing this.

It's not that difficult to modify your side panel and cut two fan ducts if you don't have them. A 120mm hole saw will do it. I did this when I had my 4870X2s in Crossfire. Cut two fan ducts along the bottom of the window right next to the X2s:



Of course I had to put two badass looking skull grills on them, courtesy of MNPCTech. With a system that mean, I just had to.

So those who want to go SLI with these on air can do it. They'll just have to get a little creative with their case.

Hotter than a 295?!