780Ti SLI mode = reference or aftermarket?

Nomanor

Member
Jun 5, 2009
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I want to get dual 780Ti for SLI mode but i need to decide if I should go with ref cards with blower cooler or with some good aftermarket card (ACX / Windforce etc).

The main concern is the cooling. On one hand, ref cards supposedly blow hot air out of the case. On the other hand, aftermarket cards have better heatsinks and fans.

So in your opinion, which combo would be better (run less hot) ?

I have HAF-X case with good airflow.
 

hawtdawg

Golden Member
Jun 4, 2005
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I have the same case, and with dual regular 780 reference cards OC'd to 1202/1700 @1.212v, they both top out at about 85C if im playing something like BF4. I only had one for a while, and it's max temps were only about 2-3C less than that. They don't get very loud either.
 

Pandora's Box

Senior member
Apr 26, 2011
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If you go aftermarket, your top card will drown in the heat from the bottom card. I had 780 SLI with EVGA's ACX coolers on them. Granted I had the cards overclocked to 1200Mhz but the top card would hit 90C in Battlefield 4 while the bottom would be at 78C. For SLI/Crossfire you want blower style (reference) coolers.
 

BallaTheFeared

Diamond Member
Nov 15, 2010
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If you go aftermarket, your top card will drown in the heat from the bottom card. I had 780 SLI with EVGA's ACX coolers on them. Granted I had the cards overclocked to 1200Mhz but the top card would hit 90C in Battlefield 4 while the bottom would be at 78C. For SLI/Crossfire you want blower style (reference) coolers.

Indeed it will, I run open bench so I put a 120mm fan at 50% on top of my 7950s.

You wouldn't believe the difference it makes, I can do 1100/1500 in valley with 43% fan (quite to me) fixed and reach 63-64C max, however as soon as I take the fan off the top the top (or first) card will begin climbing in fan speed and heat, to obnoxious levels.
 

Nomanor

Member
Jun 5, 2009
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If you go aftermarket, your top card will drown in the heat from the bottom card. I had 780 SLI with EVGA's ACX coolers on them. Granted I had the cards overclocked to 1200Mhz but the top card would hit 90C in Battlefield 4 while the bottom would be at 78C. For SLI/Crossfire you want blower style (reference) coolers.

Maybe you had a PC case that wasn't efficient at air cooling?

HAF-X has a powerful 140mm exhaust fan and a 200mm intake fan on the side that blow right on the video cards.

I currently have two ATI cards in crossfire (one is dual gpu and the other one is single gpu, so essentially tri-fire). And the temps are okay - just ran the valley and the top card doesn't exceed 73'C.

It's 5800 + 5900 series.
 
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Gloomy

Golden Member
Oct 12, 2010
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Indeed it will, I run open bench so I put a 120mm fan at 50% on top of my 7950s.

You wouldn't believe the difference it makes, I can do 1100/1500 in valley with 43% fan (quite to me) fixed and reach 63-64C max, however as soon as I take the fan off the top the top (or first) card will begin climbing in fan speed and heat, to obnoxious levels.

Do you point the fan up or down towards the cards?
 

Pandora's Box

Senior member
Apr 26, 2011
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Maybe you had a PC case that wasn't efficient at air cooling?

HAF-X has a powerful 140mm exhaust fan and a 200mm intake fan on the side that blow right on the video cards.

I currently have two ATI cards in crossfire (one is dual gpu and the other one is single gpu, so essentially tri-fire). And the temps are okay - just ran the valley and the top card doesn't exceed 73'C.

It's 5800 + 5900 series.

I have a Haf XB. The cards had a 140MM fan blowing directly into them and then I had a 200mm fan on top of the cards pulling heat away from them. Still wasnt enough to keep the top card from sky rocketing in terms of temp. Not surprising really as the bottom card is basically throwing its heat directly on to the top card.

Pandora, I too went from 780 sli to a single Ti. Are you happy with the move?

One of my 780's was eligible for evga's step-up program, so I used that to upgrade one of them to a 780 Ti. I'm currently #5 in the queue. 1 780 Ti is impressive but it's not quite enough for BF4 @ 1440P Max settings.
 

lavaheadache

Diamond Member
Jan 28, 2005
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I'm looking at getting BF4 soon. Can you define max settings? I don't mind losing AA if it'll give me good frame rates with 1 card at 2560x1600. Doubling up on cards is not something I want to do for AA.
 

Pandora's Box

Senior member
Apr 26, 2011
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I'm looking at getting BF4 soon. Can you define max settings? I don't mind losing AA if it'll give me good frame rates with 1 card at 2560x1600. Doubling up on cards is not something I want to do for AA.

rupoKf3.jpg


That's what I have been running in multiplayer. Res scaling kills the performance on single card at 1440P. On my 780's in SLI I used to run 125%. Hoping when my 2nd 780 Ti gets here I can turn it up to 140-150%.
 

blackened23

Diamond Member
Jul 26, 2011
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I've used aftermarket cards in SLI with success before but any way you look at it, you will lose some overclock headroom because as others have said - the top card will drown in the heat from the lower card. Yes, a large ATX case with tons of fans can help. I use a Cosmos II myself and while it's an amazing case, the rule still applies. SLI overclocks with aftermarket cards will generally be substantially lower than with single card aftermarket.

You can give it a shot, but with the primary benefit of aftermarket cards being higher overclocks - and that benefit being negated to a large extent in my experience - I dunno. Might not be worth it. Aftermarket benefits are amazing in single card configurations, but becomes somewhat ambiguous in SLI - with that being the case, reference may be preferable.

Also, your motherboard has a large effect on this. Some motherboards allow 3 slot spacing between SLI cards, but most do not - most motherboards only allow 2 slots to be used for SLI and CF, and those slots are generally too close for comfort in terms of aftermarket SLI.
 

BallaTheFeared

Diamond Member
Nov 15, 2010
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Do you point the fan up or down towards the cards?

Down, the biggest issue is the heat stagnates between the two cards.

With the fan pointing down towards the board the air in-between is expelled.

It is also in the rear, helping to cool the vrm area.
 

AdamK47

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
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When you go Triple or Quad the problem is even more apparent. Open air coolers do pretty much nothing when there is only a millimeter of space between cards. Forget about overclocking, you'll be throttling.
 

Aithos

Member
Oct 9, 2013
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I just had the same decision to make, I ended up going with the EVGA superclocked reference model 780ti for SLI because people were saying the blower style is better. I don't want an aggressive overclock, but I'll probably clock them to 1050-1100 or somewhere in that neighborhood assuming temps are ok. Here is my new setup (building this weekend, so excited!):

Intel i7-4770k
2x EVGA 780ti superclocked
Asus Maximus VI formula, bluray drive
Corsair AX1200i, 750D, Vengeance Pro 1866 16gb
Samsung 840 pro 256gb
WD 2tb black hdd, 3TB external hdd
Noctua u14s cpu cooler

I'm also replacing all the fans in the Corsair case, the intake fans will all be Noctua (nf-a14 flx & nf-f12) while the exhause fans are bitfenix spectre pro led (lower CFM) so that I'm running a positive air setup. I don't plan on doing a major CPU overclock but I might add an AIO water cooler down the line if I decide to go over 4.2-4.3ghz on the cpu.

I'm more concerned about temperature and longevity than amazing clock speeds, this system is a big upgrade from my i7-860 even without touching clock speeds. I'll post some temps after I have everything set up and stable if you want...
 

BallaTheFeared

Diamond Member
Nov 15, 2010
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Yeah I should add I use a piece of cardboard to increase the gap between, it's not back to front with z87, but it's pretty close.
 
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Nomanor

Member
Jun 5, 2009
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Also, your motherboard has a large effect on this. Some motherboards allow 3 slot spacing between SLI cards, but most do not - most motherboards only allow 2 slots to be used for SLI and CF, and those slots are generally too close for comfort in terms of aftermarket SLI.

This is the case with my motherboard. I have ASUS Rampage IV Extreme. It's an extended MB and I can space out my cards pretty good.

This is how I plan do do it (should be enough space in between the cards):

1384364051-clip-84kb.jpg
 
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blackened23

Diamond Member
Jul 26, 2011
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I was thinking the slots you pointed out would be x8/x8. I double checked the manual and they are indeed dual x16. That motherboard is like, perfect for 2 way SLI.
 

Nomanor

Member
Jun 5, 2009
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I was thinking the slots you pointed out would be x8/x8. I double checked the manual and they are indeed dual x16. That motherboard is like, perfect for 2 way SLI.

Yeah, that's why I picked it, together with the HAF-X to fit it in.

I planned everything out in advance, knowing that I would be getting a SLI/CF setup. I've had it for a couple years now, running the ADM in CF, but i'm getting sick of the constant issues with AMD (crashes, glitches etc) and can't wait to upgrade to SLI.

EDIT: the MB photo i linked is Asus Maximus, but the Rampage IV has exactly the same slot setup.
 

Piklar

Member
Aug 9, 2013
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To get the most out of the Reference coolers vertical layout is the way to go in other words Silverstone Fortress FT02 and Raven RV01-RV03. If you wanna stay with your Haf X best wait for aftermarket cooling (unless a watercooling project is on the cards) even with the large gap between pci-ex on the Rampage IV the top card will still suffer more thermal restriction than the bottom one limiting full OCing potential.
 
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