Just went SLI for the first time!

[Rifter]

So i finally installed my second GTX 460. Its the MSI hawk 1GB, i have it paired with a MSI cyclone 1GB ive had for months.

They will both do 900Mhz at 1.05V by themselves but cooling is a issue in SLI with my case, the Antec 300.

I learned that my motherboard is poorly designed and that i need a 8 expansion slot case to run the cards not sandwiched together. They left a blank expansion slot at the top for no reason, didnt notice till now. This has made for poor cooling for the top card and i had to lower its overclock

Im running them both at 800Mhz stock voltage till i buy a new case.

Top card(cyclone) hits 80c after under load and bottom card hits 60c(hawk), this was better than the other way around i tried that as well. Sandwiched cards FTL

I have only logged a few hours of gameplay so far but the performance increase is noticeable in heavy games such as BFBC2 and Crysis. Most games i cant notice differnce in FPS because of 60Hz display but can crank up the AA and play around with higher quality AA modes.

I mainly upgraded because im going to go to a 120Hz display within 3 months, for 60Hz 1 card was/is enough.

As to micro stutter which seems to be a hot topic of SLI/CF im going to make no comment at this time as i have logged very little gameplay, other than it seems very game dependent. Will update in a few weeks after logging more gameplay.

Any comments/questions welcome

Merry xmas!

 

[Hauk]

Welcome to multi-gpu! Power, cooling, and driver considerations need extra attention. Properly addressed, it can be a very stable solution.

Interested in improving those temps? If you haven't already, you may shave a few degrees by replacing stock TIM. More importantly, evaulate your case. You have two "internal heat dumpers," and only two (relatively small) exaust fans. Experiment with exasust fan speed settings, and load up the side and front fans (intake) if you haven't already. Mobo PCI-E spacing isn't great, but not bad. The main thing is getting air blowing on and between the cards, and insuring adequate case exaust. When going SLI on air, case size and airflow become very important. Temps can vary wildly depending on case and airflow. It's a matter of choice though, temps within reason vs. budget vs. noise vs. case size. I went big case w/big quiet fans when I went multi-gpu. Good luck, enjoy!

 

[Rifter]

Welcome to multi-gpu! Power, cooling, and driver considerations need extra attention. Properly addressed, it can be a very stable solution.

Interested in improving those temps? If you haven't already, you may shave a few degrees by replacing stock TIM. More importantly, evaulate your case. You have two "internal heat dumpers," and only two (relatively small) exaust fans. Experiment with exasust fan speed settings, and load up the side and front fans (intake) if you haven't already. Mobo PCI-E spacing isn't great, but not bad. The main thing is getting air blowing on and between the cards, and insuring adequate case exaust. When going SLI on air, case size and airflow become very important. Temps can vary wildly depending on case and airflow. It's a matter of choice though, temps within reason vs. budget vs. noise vs. case size. I went big case w/big quiet fans when I went multi-gpu. Good luck, enjoy!

Oh trust me i know all about cooling. I need a new case its that simple.

The cylone card has already had the heatsink removed, GPU heatspreader lapped and heatsink lapped and re installed with AS 5 thermal compound. The hawk card is stock, for now. The front case fans are 4000rpm deltas as is the rear 120mm exhaust fan. The lack of cable management in the Antec 300 is the main issue, that and it not being a 8 slot case, if it was i could leave 2 slots between the vid cards.

Also the 120mm side fan does not fit as it interfears with the 120mm fan on the bottom of my NH-D14 CPU heatsink, im running with side panel off and a house fan pointed at it for now as this was more effective that with it on.

 

[lavaheadache]

Just got a 120 hz monitor from the old lady for Christmas. Highly recommended. I got the ASUS one bundled with the 3d vision glasses. The difference from 60 hz is astounding. Even web browsing and scrolling down the forums is SO MUCH SMOOOOOOTHER

 

[Rifter]

Just got a 120 hz monitor from the old lady for Christmas. Highly recommended. I got the ASUS one bundled with the 3d vision glasses. The difference from 60 hz is astounding. Even web browsing and scrolling down the forums is SO MUCH SMOOOOOOTHER

I know, a buddy of mine has the Asus as well paired with 2 GTX 470's. I spent over 10 hours gaming on it and found it very hard to go back to 60hz. Im probably going to get the BenQ 120hz display as soon as i can afford it.

 

[kmmatney]

Oh trust me i know all about cooling. I need a new case its that simple.

The cylone card has already had the heatsink removed, GPU heatspreader lapped and heatsink lapped and re installed with AS 5 thermal compound. The hawk card is stock, for now. The front case fans are 4000rpm deltas as is the rear 120mm exhaust fan. The lack of cable management in the Antec 300 is the main issue, that and it not being a 8 slot case, if it was i could leave 2 slots between the vid cards.

Also the 120mm side fan does not fit as it interfears with the 120mm fan on the bottom of my NH-D14 CPU heatsink, im running with side panel off and a house fan pointed at it for now as this was more effective that with it on.

Those 4000 RPM fans must sound like an airplane - I personally couldn't deal with that...

Placing an Arctic Cooling Accelero on my HD4890 cut the temperature in half (even overclocked), with just a quiet 700 RPM fan blowing over the heatsink. I have a huge case (P182) but only needed one low-speed exhaust fan to keep everything cool. The new accelero might help a lot for your system, if there is room for it - I've seen it for $50:

http://www.arctic.ac/en/p/cooling/vga/18/accelero-xtreme-plus.html?c=2182

and would be a lot quieter too.