Question about temperature of 5770 crossfire setup

Your cards should be OK at that temp, but I would be nervous. The 5770 generally shouldn't be getting that hot. Are you sure you have good airflow over the cards? My 5750s never even hit 70C playing ME2 (yes I know they are cooler and lower powered but still). I would expect you to hit closer to 80C max. I would make sure you have good airflow on those cards.

They should be getting good airflow...the giant side fan on the p193 is blowing on them. Maybe I'll increase the speed on it. I have the Gigabyte EX58-UD5 mobo...the PCI-E slots seem to be more closer together than other boards...I wonder if that has something to do with it.

Especially sapphire HD5770's, you should be getting quite good temps. Switch around fans a bit, see what you can do. Post pics of your case if you want more help.

Very nice setup. You have everything well thought out, neat and tidy to!
Looks like you have two top exhaust fans. 1 rear exhaust and one pushing on the disk drive cage. You could try one of those antec pci slot coolers in that one open
slot under your bottom card. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

edit: It might be hard for video card heat to get exhausted , because your cpu setup is dominating that exhaust fan.

Your heat in the case is just sitting there because your CPU cooler blocks that exhaust fan.

Looks like there are top exhaust fans as well, so the air should be moving just fine. With how close those cards are to each other though, I would imagine that top card is getting HOT. Have you checked the temps on BOTH cards? From your setup, it looks to me like your bottom card would be fine, but the top card will have trouble getting air. Could you post the temps on both cards?

P.S.- you should really only be using 1 crossfire bridge. That probably won't effect heat or anything, but the second connector on the cards is so you can do tri and quad crossfire.

In Toms latest budget builds they mentioned crossfire bridges, if you have only one connector you use one. If theres two,you usually use either one or two for the same functionality.
Heres a section from a gigabyte manual.

Well, it doesn't matter too much, but the second bridge does absolutely nothing for you. I figure, its just one more thing to get in the way. My view is that if it doesn't do anything, don't put it in. I guess I should have said "don't need" rather than "shouldn't use" sorry.

just increase the speed of the cards fans.

Do you guys think moving the Sound Blaster from above the 1st 5770 to below the second one would help?

Probably, as heat does rise.

What temp is the fan increasing speed at ?? - might try adjusting the profile to let the fans speed up a bit more at a lower temp so they do not reach such high temps - IIRC with my sapphire 5770 it was leaving the fan running at 20% until the card reached 90C and then the fan would finally start to increase - I now run my fan at 50% manually (since that is still quieter than the other case fans) and it idles at 38C and rarely even reaches 70C when gaming.

I decided to turn the side fan around to make it an exhaust fan. So far the temps have maxed at 85c ....a little better I guess.

That tells me heat has been getting trapped around the cards. I would increase the fan speed a little and move the soundblaster to below the cards and see what you get.

Hmmm...I moved the Soundblaster card to the lower PCI-E slot and my temps went up again. That lower video card must be boiling with the sound blaster right next to it.

What benefits does that sound card give you, VS the Realtek audio chip on the m/b. Have you thought of running without it ? If you got your cards running under 89 now, thats not so bad ?
You could do what others have mentioned, increase fan speed.
Heres what I do , with my single card. MSI afterburner allows you to plot your own
fan curve easily. You just plot points temp/vs fan speed.
Ramp up your fan speeds starting around 60f to a higher speed than they currently are.
Unlike the curve I'm showing there, as the temps aproach 80, have the fans at 80, or higher than they are now.
I don't think much over 90% fan speed is any more efficient at moving air than a 100, but I could be wrong.

Funny...I checked GPU-z and the first card (which I assume is the top one) gets to around 90c but the bottom card gets to around 55c.

I guess I was right then eh? In that situation, you may not be able to do much if you can't move the cards a little farther away from each other. It would be better if you could get a high-airflow fan to force cool air between the cards, but with the side fan already blowing right on them, it seems like you've already got pretty good there. You might just have to live with a hot upper card.

Are the PCI-E slots about the same distance apart for all x58 mobos?

no- not necessarily. Some have them spaced an extra slot or more apart compared to what you have. That means it would leave an extra bit of space in there between the cards, allowing more cool air to get to the top card.

Guess I'll be looking for a new mobo then..

Before you do that, just increase the fan speed on the top card. You really are OK at that temp, but a higher fan speed might bring it down a bit more to make you comfortable. Also- Another option aside from replacing the MOBO is to sell the 5770's and pick up a 5850 or 5870 single card, and not have to worry about spending a bunch more money on a new Mobo you probably don't REALLY need.

I have increased the fan speed to 80% but the temp still reaches 90c (temps went back to 90c on load again for some reason)...I have thought about getting the 5850 but I probably will get greedy and eventually buy another one...then I'll probably have the same heat issue. The only reason its concerning me is because my last card (4870x2) died after a year.. and that ran just as hot.

Well, how long are you anticipating keeping those cards? Sapphires have a 2 year warranty generally, so if you just keep what you have, and it dies on you, then you just RMA it to Sapphire and you're set. If you are planning on keeping them more than 2 years, then its probably more worth reducing your temps, but I'm guessing in 2 years time, it'll be time for an upgrade anyway.