Last week I picked up a second GV-NX66T128VP card. This is Gigabyte's fanless GeForce 6600GT. I have been using a single-card configuration for a couple of months without any problems. However, as soon as I started using these cards in SLI, the situation quickly changed.
I have never bothered overclocking the core on this card, as the card already runs roughly 15C warmer than a standard 6600GT.
The room temperature is roughly 21 to 22C. Case temperature is roughly 30 to 35C, depending on what I'm doing. I have an Antec Sonata case, with a 120mm fan at the front of the case drawing air in, and another 120mm fan at the back blowing out. The fan at the front is in a position where it blows between the two x16 PCIe slots. I removed one of the slot covers from between the two cards so that air could move from the front fan, between the cards, and out the back.
I played some games in this configuration, but of course I eventually wanted to run some benchmarks.
First up was 3D Mark 03. I watched most of it, and probably should have watched all of it carefully. I suspect I may have noticed artifacts at that point. I hadn't bothered because I hadn't noticed any artifacts while gaming. Next was 3D Mark 05. 3DM05 would crash as soon as it started the second test. Hmm...
Monitoring the temperatures using nTune, it appeared as though the temps for the one card were going up well over 100C. I know that increased temps are normal for SLI, but that was a lot higher than I was expecting. I loaded up the control panel, dropped the core speed down to 450, and hit Test. It failed.
I pulled my original card out, booted up, went back into the control panel, and the new card passed. Hmm. I swapped the cards and tried again to discover that my original card was failing. This was a new problem. I had used coolbits in the past to bump up the memory speeds (from the default 1120 to 1150), and the card had passed the Nvidia control panel tests, and had never displayed any problems. In fact when I had originally run Nvidia's detection, it put the memory at 1230. I did not leave the speeds at the Nvidia detected settings, knowing that they are pretty much always too high, and as I said, I wasn't interested in overclocking the core of a fanless card.
The place from which I had purchased the original card replaced it for me (which was a pleasant surprise, as I thought I would have to wait weeks for a replacment). I installed in SLI again, booted up and underclocked the cards right away to 400. I loaded up 3D Mark 03, and this time watched the whole thing carefully. Sure enough, the artifacts were there, and this was while underclocked! I exited right away.
Testing each card individually was not a problem. They both work just fine at stock speeds, running a little warm, but within reason.
There was air flow between the cards. I could feel warm air exiting from the open slot between the cards at the back of the case. Granted, it wasn't a great deal of air, but there was air moving through there. Obviously, it isn't enough to prevent the pair of cards from overheating. I imagine a fan blowing air directly from the outside of the case onto the cards would probably suffice, but that raises two issues. First, I would have to significantly modify the Sonata to put a fan where it needs to be. Second, installing a dedicated fan sort of defeats the purpose of having fanless cards.
I just wanted to let people know that the Gigabyte fanless card is a good card, if you only ever plan on running a single card. As far as SLI goes, be very cautious. Unless you already have a fan positioned above your video card(s), you should probably avoid using this card in SLI.
I have never bothered overclocking the core on this card, as the card already runs roughly 15C warmer than a standard 6600GT.
The room temperature is roughly 21 to 22C. Case temperature is roughly 30 to 35C, depending on what I'm doing. I have an Antec Sonata case, with a 120mm fan at the front of the case drawing air in, and another 120mm fan at the back blowing out. The fan at the front is in a position where it blows between the two x16 PCIe slots. I removed one of the slot covers from between the two cards so that air could move from the front fan, between the cards, and out the back.
I played some games in this configuration, but of course I eventually wanted to run some benchmarks.
First up was 3D Mark 03. I watched most of it, and probably should have watched all of it carefully. I suspect I may have noticed artifacts at that point. I hadn't bothered because I hadn't noticed any artifacts while gaming. Next was 3D Mark 05. 3DM05 would crash as soon as it started the second test. Hmm...
Monitoring the temperatures using nTune, it appeared as though the temps for the one card were going up well over 100C. I know that increased temps are normal for SLI, but that was a lot higher than I was expecting. I loaded up the control panel, dropped the core speed down to 450, and hit Test. It failed.
I pulled my original card out, booted up, went back into the control panel, and the new card passed. Hmm. I swapped the cards and tried again to discover that my original card was failing. This was a new problem. I had used coolbits in the past to bump up the memory speeds (from the default 1120 to 1150), and the card had passed the Nvidia control panel tests, and had never displayed any problems. In fact when I had originally run Nvidia's detection, it put the memory at 1230. I did not leave the speeds at the Nvidia detected settings, knowing that they are pretty much always too high, and as I said, I wasn't interested in overclocking the core of a fanless card.
The place from which I had purchased the original card replaced it for me (which was a pleasant surprise, as I thought I would have to wait weeks for a replacment). I installed in SLI again, booted up and underclocked the cards right away to 400. I loaded up 3D Mark 03, and this time watched the whole thing carefully. Sure enough, the artifacts were there, and this was while underclocked! I exited right away.
Testing each card individually was not a problem. They both work just fine at stock speeds, running a little warm, but within reason.
There was air flow between the cards. I could feel warm air exiting from the open slot between the cards at the back of the case. Granted, it wasn't a great deal of air, but there was air moving through there. Obviously, it isn't enough to prevent the pair of cards from overheating. I imagine a fan blowing air directly from the outside of the case onto the cards would probably suffice, but that raises two issues. First, I would have to significantly modify the Sonata to put a fan where it needs to be. Second, installing a dedicated fan sort of defeats the purpose of having fanless cards.
I just wanted to let people know that the Gigabyte fanless card is a good card, if you only ever plan on running a single card. As far as SLI goes, be very cautious. Unless you already have a fan positioned above your video card(s), you should probably avoid using this card in SLI.
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