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High temps with SLI

T

Timmah!

Golden Member
Hi there

today i got second GTX 460 - the 2GB Golden Sample from Gainward it is - and have to say, at load are the cards incredibly loud! More than that, i tried unigine benchmark and the primary card (the one connected to LCD in the upper 16x slot) had 92 degrees after about 10 minutes of running unigine and the fan ran at 90-100 percent... The second card was somewhat cooler and therefore the fan ran at about 65 percent....
so my question is...are those temps high? When i had single card, i havent seen it to be hotter than 74 Celsius degrees... And is there something i can do about it - both temps and that awful noise? I was thinking about putting the plastic cover and stock fan down and replace it with 12cm silent Noctua/fractal design fan... Is this possible and will this help? I would rather not to change entire cooling system - i mean the passive part - cause do not want to lose warrancy...

Btw my specs are 2x gainward gtx 460 GS 2GB at stock speeds, gigabyte x58a ud7 rev.1 and fractal design define r2 case with 2 12cm fans in front and one fan on the backside of the case...none of the possible "moduvent" holes are open...

Thanks for your answers...
 
It should not be that high. Make sure there is air flowing towards the card as the back of one card is blocking the in-take of the other. First try to separate the card so that there is an empty pci-e slot in the middle and see if it helps on the temp. If it does, spend 20 bucks and buy a slot fan and put it in the middle.
 
Well right now i do have cards on the first and third pci-e slot...the second slot is obviously blocked by the first card...there is one more pci-e slot on the bottom side of the board, but it is 8x? Does it matter? I could perhaps put the second card there to make place between them, cause right now they almost touch each other...
 
Timmah! said:
Well right now i do have cards on the first and third pci-e slot...the second slot is obviously blocked by the first card...there is one more pci-e slot on the bottom side of the board, but it is 8x? Does it matter? I could perhaps put the second card there to make place between them, cause right now they almost touch each other...
Click to expand...

Have you switched the card and see if it make a differences? If so, RMA the hot card.
 
I do not care about gaming, i bought the second card for the purpose of the Octane render. BTW i do have 19 inch LCD, so there would be no point in SLI for me. Anyway i activated it in Control Panel and tried the unigine with it, but already disabled it...Octane specifically asked to have SLI disabled...but uses both cards, so those temps will be there...
I havent tried to put the second card in the lowest slot yet, will do it tomorrow...hopefully it will help without crippling performance...still the noise is going to be deafening...
I tried one thing though, with disabled SLI i put the cable from LCD into the second card, than started the computer and....no signal! Is this normal? I thought it does not matter what card you will use as display adapter, it will just ignore the other one! Or am i wrong?

btw thank u all for suggestions
 
One more thing, if i mount the second card into the lowest slot, it will be right above the PSU...so its cooler will be blocked by PSU in the same way as is the cooler on the upper card blocked right now by the second card... + it will push the hot air right onto the PSU, which surely is not the best thing as well...
 
i have two gigabyte gtx 460 factory oc, my fans are at 40% and temps are 45C idle (seen 38C before).

using the unigine benchmark (heaven 2.1):

both cards peak at 54% fan, 66C

antec 300 case, top and rear fan on medium

these cards are really quiet.

right now my case fans are on low and i can't hear the cards.
 
Last edited:
I believe even if you have two video cards not even connected by SLI bridge you have to put the monitor in the upper PCI-E connected video card since it gets activated first.

You might be able to toggle this via BIOS(PCI-E 1 / PCI-E 2) but I doubt it, its usually just PCI/PCI-E.

Can you get a third PCI video card just for video output?

I read about the Octane software and it only requires CUDA for rendering not SLI. Are you even sure the other video card is being used for rendering since the first one is so hot?

This is something you might have to get support from refractive software on.
 
nenforcer said:
I believe even if you have two video cards not even connected by SLI bridge you have to put the monitor in the upper PCI-E connected video card since it gets activated first.

You might be able to toggle this via BIOS(PCI-E 1 / PCI-E 2) but I doubt it, its usually just PCI/PCI-E.

Can you get a third PCI video card just for video output?

I read about the Octane software and it only requires CUDA for rendering not SLI. Are you even sure the other video card is being used for rendering since the first one is so hot?

This is something you might have to get support from refractive software on.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info

I could probably get third card, but that would be too much for me i think...so i would rather stick to those 2 i already have and solve their temp/noise problem...

I am positive the other card is working fine with octane, i tried it yesterday with upper card disabled (so it worked as display adapter only to prevent sluggishness of interface), and the picture kept still rendering, so the other card has to be working...

Another thing i found out though, the GPU-Z seems to be referring to the second card as PCI-E 1.1 only...i am completely confused now...
 
Net said:
i have two gigabyte gtx 460 factory oc, my fans are at 40% and temps are 45C idle (seen 38C before).

using the unigine benchmark (heaven 2.1):

both cards peak at 54% fan, 66C

antec 300 case, top and rear fan on medium

these cards are really quiet.

right now my case fans are on low and i can't hear the cards.
Click to expand...


well good for you
i suppose those gigabytes are better built than gainward when it comes to cooling... i still needed those gainwards cause of 2GB RAM though...
my temps at idle are 45 degrees too, while before they were the same as yours too... difference is at load

i have only 2 12cm fractal design silent series in the front and one on the rear side behind cpu cooler, perhaps adding more fans on the side panel blowing directly at cards will help...
 
Timmah! said:
well good for you
i suppose those gigabytes are better built than gainward when it comes to cooling... i still needed those gainwards cause of 2GB RAM though...
my temps at idle are 45 degrees too, while before they were the same as yours too... difference is at load

i have only 2 12cm fractal design silent series in the front and one on the rear side behind cpu cooler, perhaps adding more fans on the side panel blowing directly at cards will help...
Click to expand...

Time to bust out the zip-ties and ghetto style yourself some better air-flow.

The noise is definitely from the fanspeed on the GPU's which of course is related to the temp. Anything you can do to get cooler air to the cards will help keep the temps down which will help keep the fanspeed down which will help keep the overall noise down (provided your extra fans are running low rpms).

Looking at your case, it just screams "restricted airflow" to me. If I had that case the first thing I'd do is set the legs onto four elevated spacers so the bottom clearance is higher so more airflow can be pulled in through the bottom.

The second thing I'd do is remove the front door or take a dremel or drill and really open up the area in front of those two fans. Expecting those two fans to pull air in from the sides of the case around the door bezel is just asking for airflow issues inside the case imo.

The third thing I would do is add two exhaust fans to the top of the case, super low rpms (600-1000 tops) so virtually no noise but get that hot air out of there as best as possible so it isn't being pulled into the GPU fans.

And the fourth thing I'd consider doing is taking a drill and "meshing" out the side panel so more cool air can easily get to those GPUs.

My case is the ABS Black Pearl (my case build thread) and it has the kind of features I'd be tempted to brute-force into your case with a drill and a dremel if i had your case and had issues with the GPU noise stemming from the elevated GPU temps you are reporting.
 
Idontcare said:
Time to bust out the zip-ties and ghetto style yourself some better air-flow.

The noise is definitely from the fanspeed on the GPU's which of course is related to the temp. Anything you can do to get cooler air to the cards will help keep the temps down which will help keep the fanspeed down which will help keep the overall noise down (provided your extra fans are running low rpms).

Looking at your case, it just screams "restricted airflow" to me. If I had that case the first thing I'd do is set the legs onto four elevated spacers so the bottom clearance is higher so more airflow can be pulled in through the bottom.

The second thing I'd do is remove the front door or take a dremel or drill and really open up the area in front of those two fans. Expecting those two fans to pull air in from the sides of the case around the door bezel is just asking for airflow issues inside the case imo.

The third thing I would do is add two exhaust fans to the top of the case, super low rpms (600-1000 tops) so virtually no noise but get that hot air out of there as best as possible so it isn't being pulled into the GPU fans.

And the fourth thing I'd consider doing is taking a drill and "meshing" out the side panel so more cool air can easily get to those GPUs.

My case is the ABS Black Pearl (my case build thread) and it has the kind of features I'd be tempted to brute-force into your case with a drill and a dremel if i had your case and had issues with the GPU noise stemming from the elevated GPU temps you are reporting.
Click to expand...


thanks for the advices, i might probably add some more fans into the case, those Noctua NF P12 seem to be quite good...but i would rather not drill any holes into my case, nor remove the front doors 😀

@notty: thanks for the link, today i am going to give it a try, hope it will help...

anyway, cannot stop swearing at gigabyte and gainward now... how can they do such a stupid board layout, respectively make such a shit cooling - i would never even think about SLI just for gaming before, and now i know why...
 
If you hate lound computer noise like me, you should also look up screw replacement rubber fan mounts. It'll help dampen the sound coming from case fan vibration.
 
Well the computer is noisy when the cards are at load and i do not think rubber mounts are going to help with it...
I tried to switch the second card into the lowest PCI-E slot, but ffs it will not fit, because the PSU is in the way... it is really disgrace...and then you see every single hardware site spewing sh!t how is GTX460 SLI great, how it beats 480 etc...but somehow they fail to mention it is f*cking hot and loud!
At least i managed to switch primary display device to the bottom card in BIOS, so i can play games without too much noise...
Now i am planning to add one Noctua P14 to the side panel blowing the air from outside onto the cards and 2 more on the roof right above CPU cooler to blow hot air inside the case out...what do you think about it?
 
Adding extra case fans are good, though you might still want to think about the rubber fan mounts since more fans will create more noise. For the side panel, I'm not sure if the side vent comes with a filter, so if not, you might want to consider getting a cheap filter if you are using that for intake.

I have an Antec 300 which is similar to your case minus the extra vent on the top. I have two exhaust fans, one on the top and one on the back that blows air of the case. My cpu cooler is positioned so that the fan blows out towards the back exhaust fan. I put a filter on the side case fan since it blows air directly on the graphics card, so you definitely need to make sure that dusts do not get in.

Yea multiple graphics card are always hot, you will need a good cooling setup in your case. Generally hardware sites are for enthusiasts who care a lot about performance so they have higher noise tolerance. Review sites should include more recordings of the sound from the actual test setup.
 
Timmah! said:
...but ffs it will not fit, because the PSU is in the way... it is really disgrace...and then you see every single hardware site spewing sh!t how is GTX460 SLI great, how it beats 480 etc...but somehow they fail to mention it is f*cking hot and loud!
Click to expand...

FWIW I don't think anyone is trying to mislead anyone about the cards, you can make anything hot and loud if you are trying to shove it into a space that simply cannot, by design, facilitate good airflow to the components.

It sounds like your case is simply not designed with multi-GPU cards in mind. You'd probably come to similar conclusion even with a couple AMD xfire cards in there...poor airflow is poor airflow and if your PSU is restricting card placement on your mobo then that says something about how your case places your PSU relative to the mobo.

Not trying to be argumentative, just saying be practical about your conundrum because you aren't going to really resolve it until you get practical. There is a reason some people opt to go with larger cases, more fans, etc. To me it sounds like you have discovered a reason you would be a candidate for a different case.
 
Timmah! said:
Well the computer is noisy when the cards are at load and i do not think rubber mounts are going to help with it...
I tried to switch the second card into the lowest PCI-E slot, but ffs it will not fit, because the PSU is in the way... it is really disgrace...and then you see every single hardware site spewing sh!t how is GTX460 SLI great, how it beats 480 etc...but somehow they fail to mention it is f*cking hot and loud!
At least i managed to switch primary display device to the bottom card in BIOS, so i can play games without too much noise...
Now i am planning to add one Noctua P14 to the side panel blowing the air from outside onto the cards and 2 more on the roof right above CPU cooler to blow hot air inside the case out...what do you think about it?
Click to expand...
Put it this way, your PC won't get cooler and quieter if you are so hot and noisy atm. There are many solutions that can solve your problems, and we can only trying to give you the cheapest, easiest ones to your first. 460 can get to those temps if there is no airflow and we are under an assumption that airflow is what causing the problem. First, swap the two cards and see if temps go down to eliminate the possibility that one of the card has manufacture defects (hot for no good reason.)

Again, if money is available, get another full tower case as your case is really for watercooling (see the 2 holes at the top?) Of course, you can go watercooling just for the 2 video cards to eliminate the noise for the fan of the video cards.

Look up for a fan called Antec spotcool. It is designed to be use inside the case to correct air-blocks. IMO a pci fan does a better job, but if it isn't a visible option, then go for the spotcool.

Before start buying stuff, you should really find out what is the cost of high-temp. If it is indeed a defective card, then you should RMA it asap.
 
Thanks again for your responses...swapping the cards is good idea, i wasnt even thinking that the upper card might be defective...and it is true, for about 2 days i used it alone - i had a subjective feeling it is louder than my previous card, which was accidentaly Gainward GTX460 Goes Like Hell... i was quite satisfied with that card, both performance and temo/noise wise...however needed to replace it with 2GB version cause of Octane...

BTW i concede that i am indeed partially to be blamed for the whole issue, i should have been more careful, when i chose my components. For the records i never planned to run 2 cards though, this was more of a recent idea, when i found about Octane and its requirements... and despite the fact, i was originally not building my system with SLI in mind, i had a good faith, that it might be possible without major problems...which is, when it comes to performance (probably), but those other aspects are worry...

Changing whole case is no option for me now and watercooling is beyond my budget (i suppose) + have no experience with it. However i will try to solve it with modifying airflow as you suggested and perhaps try to change coolers on GPU... that is another issue BTW, it is 3 months since GF104 was introduced to market and i was not able to find one aftermarket cooler, which i could buy apart from Scythe Setsugen 2, which is going to be introduced next month...what are the cooling stuff companies waiting for?
 
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