570GTX SLI

[corban]

So ive had my MSI Twin Frozr 570 gtx for about a month now and im very happy with it a nice upgrade from my 5850, and my new psu is fitted (850HX from corsair) and well with all the upcoming games and the fact ive been wanting to try SLI for some time, i have picked up another 570. Sadly its not another MSI but a bargin deal i managed to find on ebay, im hoping this wont be a problem running them together as everything ive read tells me this will be fine (other card is a twin fan PALIT).

So my questions really are just seeking comfirmation firstly that my PSU is enough (again ive read it is) and secondly that SLI'ing these cards wont be an issue , i believe my case along with them both being non reference and having extra cooling will mean temperatures are not an issue.

Any tips or advice would be great.

 

[SieB]

Your PSU is fine, Corsairs do more than they are rated at anyway especially the HX series, they are 80+ silver branded but run at near 80+ Gold standards plus they use the same capacitors as the 80+ gold ones as well.

You shouldn't have any probs running those cards in SLI either if one has a higher clock speed though it will be down clocked to the speed of the slower card but you can overclock the slower one to match the higher clocked one. Either way you shouldn't have any problems with them.

 

[corban]

This is good news and means its possible i can read! Ordered the card yesterday and its arrived 9am this morning , very impressed will install and test today and hopefully see some nice results!.

 

[CRAZYCAP]

keep us posted corban. I am interested in adding another 570 to my rig soon.

 

[Scoob]

Hi,

You should be just fine mate.

As per my sig, I have a pair of 570's too, an original reference Palit and a new reference (different design) Inno3D. Both play together nicely with my 2500k @ 4.6 ghz on a Corsair HX750 PSU *. I've happily OC'd both cards to 850mhz and it's been fine - if a little noisier! Currently running back at stock on the GPU's as they're really already insanely powerful and the overclock was just for fun. Still, nice to know that one day I will be able to turn them up a bit of I so choose.

* 750w is the minimum I feel for my setup, as the Corsair unit is a particularly good one it's fine. The thing doesn't even get any warmer, nor do the fans spin up any more with the 2nd card added (that I can tell) - even overclocked. So, you 850 should be perfect.

Best of luck & keep us posted how you get on.

Scoob.

 

[SkinToxicated]

Got a HX750 myself running a GTX570 (oc to 900Mhz) and a GTX275 with 920@4Ghz and its fine. i read a review that the HX750 is basically an Hx850 with a slightly lower effeciency level and they said any other PSU company would brand it at 850W

 

[corban]

Ok so first update and please bear in mind these are rough figures when i give them.

So installed both cards and well i was very concerned that the cards seem to have about 1-2 mm distance between them when setup with my mobo, took some pictures and went and spoke to friends about this. The general consensus seemed to be that they would be fine.

Soi have installed them both and now just running the pc for the first time , knowing next to nothing about running SLI i wanted to start from scratch. I have installed the SLI bridge both cards are installed and showing as working fine in device manager and in MSI afterburner. I have not overclocked anything yet its all stock, temps for card 1 while idle and in windows was 51 with lowest being 50 second card was 35 with lowest being 32.

Now for the slightly scary part, i ran crysis 2 (dx11 + texture patch) with all settings on max and it ran flawlessly couldnt be happier with the performance i played for about 10 minutes. However i could hear a fan spinning up very loudly the entire time the game was running (all panels off the pc atm so could be with everything on its not noticable as the ft02 has good sound dampening i think). I closed crysis 2 and loaded afterburner and the temps showing for card 1 were 76 with lowest being 73 and card 2 50 and lowest 48.

Granted i have more reading to do and some experimenting but the lack of space between the cards concerns me and the loud fan spin up also does. These are just my first fumblings but i do know my board is the reason the 2 cards have to be so close as its a Gigabyte ud5 x58 , as far as i can see theres no other option where to put the cards as theres only 2x 16x pci-e.

More to follow, please feel free to explain my mistakes or point out if im doing something dumb

 

[Scoob]

Hi,

Ok, thanks for updating us!

Right, on my motherboard there is a larger gap between the two cards, nearer 3cm or so, did you really mean 1-2 Millimeters? That's tight. Still, my cards are both DUAL slot, maybe yours are a little bigger?

Also, do your cards vent hot air out the back or into the case? My older (topmost) card vents out the back while my newer (bottom) card vents a lot into the case, heating the upper card potentially. To address this I have a cheap 120mm fan on extract right over the cards, which my case allows.

Your temps aren't so bad...two cards together will get a little hotter and 76c, while hot, isn't dangerously so. I have a front 140mm fan bringing in cool air in my case, another 120mm fan below that but angled at 45 degrees to ensure my UPPER card gets a little more air. Your idle temps are a little warmer than I'd expect though...do check your air flow.

My cards idle at about 30-36c (coolest / warmest card) in the current cool weather. The upper card hits the high 60's / v.low 70's in Crysis 2. The lower card usually ~5c below that. I do have a slightly more agressive fan profile applied, so my fans ramp up a little sooner than normal. It is a little louder, but not so much as to be an issue for me.

The key thing really is to try to get the best possible air-flow TO your cards, and ensure that any hot air is extracted efficiently. Your lack of space will be a bit of a compromise, but decent fans pulling cool air IN should help.

Be aware, IF you run two screens (I do sometimes) this will stop your cards from dropping to their usual idle speed when just at the desktop doing non-gaming activities. This means they WILL be at a high temp when not under load.

Oh, point of interest, my case air-flow is pretty damn good, so much so that my cards run no cooler with the side panel off.

Best of luck & post some photos if you can.

Cheers,

Scoob.

 

[corban]

Hi,

Ok, thanks for updating us!

Right, on my motherboard there is a larger gap between the two cards, nearer 3cm or so, did you really mean 1-2 Millimeters? That's tight. Still, my cards are both DUAL slot, maybe yours are a little bigger?

Also, do your cards vent hot air out the back or into the case? My older (topmost) card vents out the back while my newer (bottom) card vents a lot into the case, heating the upper card potentially. To address this I have a cheap 120mm fan on extract right over the cards, which my case allows.

Your temps aren't so bad...two cards together will get a little hotter and 76c, while hot, isn't dangerously so. I have a front 140mm fan bringing in cool air in my case, another 120mm fan below that but angled at 45 degrees to ensure my UPPER card gets a little more air. Your idle temps are a little warmer than I'd expect though...do check your air flow.

My cards idle at about 30-36c (coolest / warmest card) in the current cool weather. The upper card hits the high 60's / v.low 70's in Crysis 2. The lower card usually ~5c below that. I do have a slightly more agressive fan profile applied, so my fans ramp up a little sooner than normal. It is a little louder, but not so much as to be an issue for me.

The key thing really is to try to get the best possible air-flow TO your cards, and ensure that any hot air is extracted efficiently. Your lack of space will be a bit of a compromise, but decent fans pulling cool air IN should help.

Be aware, IF you run two screens (I do sometimes) this will stop your cards from dropping to their usual idle speed when just at the desktop doing non-gaming activities. This means they WILL be at a high temp when not under load.

Oh, point of interest, my case air-flow is pretty damn good, so much so that my cards run no cooler with the side panel off.

Best of luck & post some photos if you can.

Cheers,

Scoob.

Right ill do my best to add some photos later but ill just fill in a few gaps for now.

Firstly , it wasnt a typo sadly it really is a tiny gap between the cards they are almost touching ( Gigabyte UD5 x58 the 2x 16x PCI-E slots wont allow them to be anywhere else)

Secondly my case is a Fortress FT-02 so the board is rotated 90 degrees so the cards actually vent the hot air directly out the top of the case and there are 3x 180mm fans sucking cool air directly into the bottom and pushing it thru the case venting it out the top. I believe this is an extremely good air cooling case.

I dont believe its possible for me to increase the air flow to the cards, i will also mention both cards have dual fans on them the PALIT one i would say has the weaker cooling system , and that is the card in slot1 which is also the one that gets hottest ( may well try swopping the MSI card to that slot). The MSI twin frozr is the other card and cooler so may fare better. But the problem lies i believe that the card in slot1 has very little if any way for the fan to draw cool air in as it in bang right agaisnt the back of card2 and i feel this is the problem.

Thanks again for your help and posts.

 

[Scoob]

Ah, I see. Real shame about the small gap, not really sure what additional options you have there.

Swapping the cards would be a good test I think, the "blocked" card will always be a little hotter than if it had perfect air-flow of course, but having the card that's generally cooler (better cooling, newer design etc.) at the "top" (tho top is quite right in your case, but you know what I mean) should help a little.

I do find it odd that the slots that are only there for SLI/Xfire (why else have 2x 16?) are so close. To be honest, I'd rather mine were further apart, but they're positively spacious compared to yours!

Best of luck & keep us posted.

Scoob.

 

[-warheart-]

well since 76 isnt really that high you could make a custom fan profile in afterburner. that should solve your noise issue, but be sure to monitor the temps if you do it

 

[corban]

well since 76 isnt really that high you could make a custom fan profile in afterburner. that should solve your noise issue, but be sure to monitor the temps if you do it

One last update for tonight , done some gaming on the rig tonight and its lovely , flies through crysis 2 and black ops so im very happy and think bf3/skyrim and co will be a joy with this.

On another note i did run heaven and benched just under 2k, with temps showing at max 81 on the first card.

More pics and proper benches tomorrow i hope (when i work out how to upload pics!)

 

[corban]

So this morning ive decided to switch the cards around with pretty awful results.

The MSI was thicker than the PALIT one which is why i had the PALIT card in slot1 as i thought it was get a little bit more room to breathe, so upon swopping the cards and switching the machine on i was met with the default gfx settings you get before installing any drivers, i thought ok np this did this before i just needed to let the drivers load then load sli mode thru the nvidia panel. Well this wasnt the case it couldnt find a nvidia gpu it said and under device manager only 1 card was showing and that had a problem. So switched off and thought maybe id not seated both cards correctly, the MSI card about burnt the skin off my hand it was burning hot after maybe 4 minutes in windows.

After careful inspection it appears the MSI card is too thick to be card one and the fan actual presses agaisnt the back of the PALIT card stopping the fans from working at all , i assume this caused the heat and the reason things were not well in windows.

Since then ive taken both cards out and tried each card seperately and all is well , so no permanent damage done but a scare for me at least.

Running the heaven bench last night the PALIT card in slot1 hit 92 degrees , so all of this leads me to believe i really need to look to change my board as i dont think these are temps i want to run my machine at as i have bought these cards to max games out for long peroids of time.

So unless somone has an answer i think ill be looking to a 2500k i5 and one of the mid range z68 boards , maybe the ASrock or the Gigabyte UD3 one as both are jet black and seem to be what i would require. However im open to any suggestions

Thanks again for any input.

Short EDIT - First time uploading pictures here so just putting a small one on as to not break any rules i hope and just to show the distance between the cards is near non exsistant.

 

[corban]

Not sure everyone wants me to keep updating this but i will for now.

I have found what i feel is a cracking deal from a friend for a setup of a p67 sabertooth board with an i7 2600k and 16gb if gskill sniper ram which we are both happy with so im gonna go with that.

Will most likely try and do a build with some pics seeing as this is going to be new mobo/ram/cpu/2xgfx cards/psu.

I think this will solve any issues and give me a nice little upgrade from my i7 920 with 6gb of ram and give me sata and usb3 connectivity.

 

[yassarikhan786]

Not sure everyone wants me to keep updating this but i will for now.

I have found what i feel is a cracking deal from a friend for a setup of a p67 sabertooth board with an i7 2600k and 16gb if gskill sniper ram which we are both happy with so im gonna go with that.

Will most likely try and do a build with some pics seeing as this is going to be new mobo/ram/cpu/2xgfx cards/psu.

I think this will solve any issues and give me a nice little upgrade from my i7 920 with 6gb of ram and give me sata and usb3 connectivity.

It is the spacing that is causing the issue and a new MB should resolve that issue

.

 

[Scoob]

Hi,

Ouch, just caught up on your card swap experiences!

Both the P67 yassarikhan786 has and my Z68 board are basically the same layout and allow more room between the two cards. I'm just double checking now and there's a 3cm gap between my two cards - you could nearly fit one of my cards in the gap!

I just checked out some Sabertooth board pictures...slightly different layout to mine but there's still that larger gap between the two PCI-E x16 slots. Be aware that with TWO GPUs fitted you will not be able to use the single PCI slot - only an issue if you have a PCI device fitted of course.

Shame you couldn't get yourself a better board that woud retain your 920 etc. as they are still good CPUs. I went from a Q6600 @ 3.6 to my 2500k and it was a huge leap - even with the 2500K at stock 3.3! Now at 4.6 it flies. I'd hope you'd get a noticable jump, though I've never used a 920 to compare myself.

You should be able to build a good "spare" rig around the 920! My Q6600 is now my Gateway / Internet / Server / Workhorse PC for day-to-day stuff and the odd game. Works well.

Cheers,

Scoob.

 

[corban]

Hi,

Ouch, just caught up on your card swap experiences!

Both the P67 yassarikhan786 has and my Z68 board are basically the same layout and allow more room between the two cards. I'm just double checking now and there's a 3cm gap between my two cards - you could nearly fit one of my cards in the gap!

I just checked out some Sabertooth board pictures...slightly different layout to mine but there's still that larger gap between the two PCI-E x16 slots. Be aware that with TWO GPUs fitted you will not be able to use the single PCI slot - only an issue if you have a PCI device fitted of course.

Shame you couldn't get yourself a better board that woud retain your 920 etc. as they are still good CPUs. I went from a Q6600 @ 3.6 to my 2500k and it was a huge leap - even with the 2500K at stock 3.3! Now at 4.6 it flies. I'd hope you'd get a noticable jump, though I've never used a 920 to compare myself.

You should be able to build a good "spare" rig around the 920! My Q6600 is now my Gateway / Internet / Server / Workhorse PC for day-to-day stuff and the odd game. Works well.

Cheers,

Scoob.

Yeah it wasnt the best of situations but i had been looking at possibly upgrading anyways so this scratches that itch at the same time. Reluctantly im going to sell my old kit as i dont really have the spare funds to keep that much kit sitting around , it should fetch a decent amount and mean the upgrade costs me little.

I am however very excited to see what im able to do both buildwise and bench+gamewise with my new setup when i pick it up tonight.

I will update this with the SLI results and should probably move the rest to the build section.

 

[corban]

Quick update, after building and testing and reinstalling everything seems to be running fine with the nice clearance between the cards both cards idle at 40 degrees and when i ran heaven max was 67 degrees which i think is fairly good. This was all on stock for everything but seems all my problems were what we thought and all hardware is running fine.

My heaven bench was 2050ish but gonna tweak and tidy the rig up now and more to follow.

 

[yassarikhan786]

Quick update, after building and testing and reinstalling everything seems to be running fine with the nice clearance between the cards both cards idle at 40 degrees and when i ran heaven max was 67 degrees which i think is fairly good. This was all on stock for everything but seems all my problems were what we thought and all hardware is running fine.

My heaven bench was 2050ish but gonna tweak and tidy the rig up now and more to follow.

That's good news mate

.

 

[corban]

So tidied things up a bit and after a day of playing and testing , all seems well the benches arent out of this world for the spec of the rig but everything is at default with no tweaks made at all. I havent seen either card go above 70 degrees even under heaven/crysis2/3dmark vantage strain and all my games are running amazingly well.

I have a CPU cooler on the way and when that arrives its time to start pushing things a little more, ill add a photo to show the distance between the cards now , and its looking quite tidy too so im happy right now!.