advice needed for GTX 970 SLI

[dmoney1980]

I'd like to grab a pair of 970's, but I'm not sure if reference or aftermarket is the way to go.

Thing is, I have a corsair air 540 case with a h100i CPU cooler on top set up as exhaust.

Here's where I'm stuck- the stock blower is louder, but it pushes hot air out the back. The stock cooler may also limit OC's since reviews show 80* at load.

Then there's the aftermarket coolers. TPU reviewed an Asus 970 strix. Its silent at load, but it moves the hot air inside the case and I'll have an SLI setup. I'm afraid that while the cards may be quieter, it may result in causing the h100 fans to speed up due to the rising case temps.

The other nice thing about strix models are the OC potential, quiet performance, and single 8 pin connectors (bonus).

Thoughts?

 

[KaRLiToS]

Get reference coolers for the 970 SLI.

Maxwell doesn't run very hot and reference blowers exhaust the hot air outside of the case.

 

[Subyman]

Yeah reference, blow that air out. The Titan cooler is great. It uses heat pipes now instead of a vapor chamber now, but there is still plenty of cooling for the low TDP part.

I'm thinking of snagging two 970's as well for 4k.

 

[RaistlinZ]

Reference 970's are only being sold to OEM's I believe. Retail 970's will be non-reference.

 

[Subyman]

Reference 970's are only being sold to OEM's I believe. Retail 970's will be non-reference.

Ah, good call. Hopefully there is a rear blower available from someone.

 

[Attic]

That case is fine for the Asus cards. 970s aren't dumping that much heat, so I wouldn't sweat it. Motherboard with triple spacing for gpu is most important so that top card can get a slot worth of space for air.

 

[dmoney1980]

Reference 970's are only being sold to OEM's I believe. Retail 970's will be non-reference.

I did not know that! Well that makes things easier. I may just grab the Asus card, unless I see another card that runs cooler and quieter than that.

 

[DominionSeraph]

Open up your PCI slots and turn your rear fan into an intake and you shouldn't have any problem.