Adding a second 980 - do I need more case fans?

jeffler383

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Mar 22, 2013
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I'm currently running an evga 980 sc overclocked to about 1450mhz, and the temp never gets above 75c, even after hours in fa4 or witcher 3. later this summer I'll be looking at getting a second evga card, but due to size constraints on the asus z170a they'll be sandwiched on top of each other. My case is a deep cool tesseract bf, and has mounts for 2 fans on the window grate directly over where the cards will be, would it be a good investment to put fans there? Currently i have one intake fan at the bottom front and the radiator fan out the top rear for a corsair h60 water cooler, and thats it. No heat issues whatsoever so far, but ive never done an sli setup before. CPU is i5 6600k oc to 4.4 ghz and i have yet to see it get over 62c.

Including the window mounts there are 6 open fan spaces not in use, fans are cheap so i could put ones on the front and side as intake and the ones on the top and back to exhaust to try create a true negative pressure situation, but that almost seems overkill and i dont want to inadvertently reduce the cooling efficiency. My other thought was be to have the side fans over the cards blowing out as exhaust, though since this is my first true build I'm not sure if thats a good idea or not. Thoughts or advice would be much appreciated.
 
Solution
Yep i would definitely add one to the side of the case to blow directly on the GPU's if you have a spot for a fan there, and 2x120mm or 1x140mm on front side. All of them as INTAKE. Then I would have 1x120mm on the back and 1x120 or 140mm on top as exhaust fans :)

Proofy

Admirable
Yep i would definitely add one to the side of the case to blow directly on the GPU's if you have a spot for a fan there, and 2x120mm or 1x140mm on front side. All of them as INTAKE. Then I would have 1x120mm on the back and 1x120 or 140mm on top as exhaust fans :)
 
Solution

Rookie_MIB

Distinguished
Just using a bit of logic, and according to what I see on the EVGA 980 SC, it's a blower type cooling system, which means it takes case air, puts it through the heatsink, and blows it out the back of the card. In your particular case, with the mount directly above the GPUs, you could do it one of two ways:

1) put a fan directly above the GPUs, blowing cool air directly on them. This would have the effect of directly cooling the cards with air blowing on them, and providing the cards with cool air to suck in and exhaust the heat out the back. This is a very direct way to to it and would be effective for cooling the GPU.

2) This would be a little more indirect, but would benefit the entire system as a whole. By putting fans on the top of the case (blowing out of the case) you would be sucking air in right over the GPU. This would give the GPUs the advantage of a supply of fresh cool air which the GPUs could use, but excess cool air would continue up through the case providing cooling for the rest of the components as well.

What I would do? I would just put in the new card first. Test it. See if it -needs- any cooling system modifications. The 980s are relatively efficient, if the temps start to get too high, then try adding a fan. No need to fix it if aint broke, right?
 

cbag

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Dec 11, 2011
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cbag

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Dec 11, 2011
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I would definitely do option 2. Heat rises. Placing fans at the top of the case blowing up and out will keep heat out of the case and bottom fans pushing cool air in will keep the case very cool. It's what I do with the HAF-912.