Cheap SLI Cooling

[rafarataneneces]

Originally Posted by Revs

The cause of your problem is probably the heat from your bottom card warming the cooling air going in to the top card. Any of the solutions in this thread should help out alot with this. The best thing to do is do a little experimenting to see which method works best for your setup.

Welcome to the forum .

Glad it helped, rage

Thank you brother

I ordered this:

Logisys 120mm Ball-Bearing 2000RPM Blue LED Lighted Case Fan w/3+4pin Power Connectors

So I will have 3 incredible fans with blue light making everything cooler.

I'm thinking in placing 2 fans on top of the video card, and another one on top of the Thermalright fan for the Intel Core i7 920 processor (overclocked 3.8 Mhz)

One question though, what is the best 'invisible' way to connect these fans to the video cards, and the Black Thermalright CPU Cooler

I have a transparent case so ever engineering that I do (while cheap and functional), can be seen 24/7 from the outside, so I need style as well

I have 4 blue lights inside the case (2 of them sound sensitive, and connected to my headphones), so when I hear music, the whole case lights up

Right now my 120mm fan is connected to the thermaltake using some HORRIBLE rubber stripe, I don't know what's the name of it in english

It's light brown, just horrible

[Revs]

I know this sounds silly but you want to be blowing air in to the general area of the air intake, but don't put the fan(s) to close to the cards. I found having too much air movement near the graphics cards intake can actually hinder the GPU fans ability to work properly. As I said, do some testing and see what works best in your rig.

As for the power connectors for the fans; either connect them to the motherboard or directly to the PSU. A pic of the internals of your rig might be helpful .

[rafarataneneces]

Originally Posted by Revs

I know this sounds silly but you want to be blowing air in to the general area of the air intake, but don't put the fan(s) to close to the cards. I found having too much air movement near the graphics cards intake can actually hinder the GPU fans ability to work properly. As I said, do some testing and see what works best in your rig.

As for the power connectors for the fans; either connect them to the motherboard or directly to the PSU. A pic of the internals of your rig might be helpful .

Ok

But how can I 'secure' them, 'attach' them on top of the video cards?

[Revs]

Originally Posted by rafarataneneces

Ok

But how can I 'secure' them, 'attach' them on top of the video cards?

What cards are they? Do they have stock coolers?

I get the impression you're wanting to replace the stock GPU fans. Is that right?

[rafarataneneces]

Originally Posted by Revs

What cards are they? Do they have stock coolers?

I get the impression you're wanting to replace the stock GPU fans. Is that right?

Not at all, I want the stock fans to be there, working

As I've read, I shouldn't place the ventilators right on top of the video cards

They are 2 x Nvidia GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 Factory Superclocked 624 Mhz SLI

I will really like to have the new

GeForce GTX 260x2, I hope they release it before Xmas in order to use my Step Up program with EVGA

[Revs]

I would do something similar to what MikeC has done then. Have your fan by the side of the cards to circulate some air between the two graphics cards. Secure the fan any way you can. It might even be a good idea to mod your case to have the fan mounted in the side cover to suck even cooler air in. That would work even better. That's how I've got mine setup up but the Stacker cases make it very easy to do so..



What case have you got?

[rafarataneneces]

OK, I placed the fan on top of the sound card (no attachment or wires whatsoever, just placed it like you place a glass on a table)

It worked!

Now my case looks even blue-er (is that a word?), and my GPU cards are about the same


62 C the top one
57 the bottom one

If I run the ventilators at full speed (which also makes more noise), the 120 mm ventilators will make the GPU down by 4 C approximately


60 C for the top one
56 C for the bottom one

If I also apply the EVGA Precision utility profiles, and select 626 Mhz (factory overclock), and full ventilators, the computer will make A LOT of noise, but the final temperature will be (iddle, no game being played)


53 for the top one
50 for the bottom one


So, an awful amount of noise, gives me around 9C-10C less temperature in both GPU cards. It's not worth it to me, but hey, I suppose if you overclock your GPU a lot you might need it

My video cards are GTX 260 Core 216. Would you mind placing your temperatures so that I can know how good/bad my results are?

Ultimately, I want a cool and quiet PC. And I don't see to see the need to activate full ventilators (the 120 mm or the GPU ones) anytime

I also have a BIG ventilator which ventilates my feet hahaha

but really, the GPU ventilators are top speed make A LOT OF NOISE, sounds like an Xbox 360!

But at leats my objective has been accomplished. Both video cards are running at around the same temperature, and the more fans I place, the nicer my computer looks

[rafarataneneces]

Originally Posted by Revs

The cause of your problem is probably the heat from your bottom card warming the cooling air going in to the top card. Any of the solutions in this thread should help out alot with this. The best thing to do is do a little experimenting to see which method works best for your setup.

Welcome to the forum .

Glad it helped, rage

No revs the problem was the sound card (which has no ventilation at all), was applying A LOT OF HEAT right on top of Video Card number 1.

So that card (while playing), could reach up to 80C, and that was just starting to worry me.

What is the max recommended temperature for these babies?

[Revs]

Originally Posted by rafarataneneces

No revs the problem was the sound card (which has no ventilation at all), was applying A LOT OF HEAT right on top of Video Card number 1.

So that card (while playing), could reach up to 80C, and that was just starting to worry me.

What is the max recommended temperature for these babies?

Your sound card gets hot? Strange.

Anyhow, 80*C should be fine, but obviously the cooler the better.

[ViN86]

Originally Posted by AdamK47

Hey chief, your computer is upside down.

[rafarataneneces]

Originally Posted by Revs

Your sound card gets hot? Strange.

Anyhow, 80*C should be fine, but obviously the cooler the better.

My CPU is as follows:

Intel Core i7 920 overclocked @ 3.9 Ghz

Ok, right now, with all the 120 MM ventilators to the max, I have this temperatures:

CPU: 38 C
GPU: 50 C
GPU2: 47 C


Now, if I activate the GPU ventilators to 100%, I get this:

CPU: 38 C
GPU: 47 C
GPU2: 44 C

Now, if I put the GPU ventilators, the CPU 120 MM vent and the 2 120 MM GPU ventilators to the minimum

CPU: 38 C
GPU: 50 C
GPU2: 47 C


Now, if I completely shut down the 6 120 mm ventilators (1 on top of the sound card, 1 in the side of the SLI Nvidia cards, 1 in front of the HD, 2 on each side of the Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme heatpipe cooler) plus the gigantic 12 CM ventilators (yeah, this is having the CPU overclocked with absolutely zero ventilators), I have these temperatures:

CPU: 54 C
GPU: 51 C
GPU2: 47 C


So in conclusion, I have 7 ventilators.
If I completely shut down all the ventilators (of course, the 2 GPU ventilators are still running at the 40% which is the default), the GPU temperature doesn't seems to be affected at all, the CPU temperature goes up, but only 4 C or so

So in conclusion, I will remain with all my ventilators running, but at a minimum power.

I think when the GPU is overclocked, running at 700 Mhz, I might run all the ventilators at full power. But apart from noise, I don't see any benefits

I like having the lowest temperature possible, but I won't go up 10db-15db in order to gain a marginal gain of 3 C

[rafarataneneces]

Originally Posted by Revs

Your sound card gets hot? Strange.

Anyhow, 80*C should be fine, but obviously the cooler the better.

Now I totally disable the GPU ventilators (120 MM, not the internal ones), and this is the result

GPU1: 55C
GPU2: 50C


So with the 2 extra 120 mm ventilators, I've acomplished to put both cards at around the same temperature

So with this, I hope to play Crysis at it's full, and not have 80 C in one card, and 70 on the other

So I hope I can have 70 C on both cards

from my experience, anything above 80C and the FPS actually start to go down

I can be playing Crysis at 62 FPS, but if the temperature goes to 80C, boom, the FPS can drop maybe 4-5 FPS.

So in GTA IV, I really want maximum performance, and preferably, with minimum noise