High main gpu idle temp?

[Martin 71]

Hey,
I have 2 6870s in crossfire and my main card is always idling at 60c. Admittedly it doesn't have as much ventilation as the second card, but I would think it'd be a little cooler. At full load I've seen it hit 88c. My memory on the main card is at 1050 no matter what, and I've tried swapping around the cards in case it was a bad sensor or something. It's not. I've deduced that the 1050 mhz memory is because I'm running multimonitors... does anyone else have a similar setup? Should I worry about temps?

 

[purple stain]

What type of 6870 do you have?

What case do you have?

If you have one of those mobos where theirs no gap between the slots then those temps are normal.They are high temps, but for a crossfire their normal.

 

[Martin 71]

Dual xfx hd 6870s with the blower type cooling, Nzxt m59 case, asus sabertooth p67 motherboard. There's approximately 1 inch between the cards.

 

[purple stain]

The specs for your case say it doesn't come with a intake(front) fan.Do you have a fan in the front?

If your XFX 6870's are the reference design then the high temps are normal.Reference cards have horrible heatsinks.I suggest adding a fan in the front if you don't have one already and add another fan or 2 to the top for exhaust.Better airflow should bring the temp down a little.

Reference looks like this

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150506

EDIT: I just looked again at the specs for your case and the pre-installed fans aren't that great.They run at 42cfm which doesn't move a lot of air at all..I suggest you populate all of your fan slots with new fans.That should dramaticly reduce the temps for both 6870's.

I suggest some of these fans...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007998%20600035590%20600035654&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&Order=RATING&PageSize=20

 

[Martin 71]

Thank you. Indeed I do have a front fan, and mine are the reference cards. I am looking at aftermarket heatsinks however. Also, I really like the fans you posted. I'm going to buy a couple right now.

 

[purple stain]

Which ones were you thinking of getting?

I own a 6870 and I looked everywhere for a aftermarket heatsink but they are scarce.The only "good" ones I found were from Arctic Cooling.They are really good heatsinks but the bad thing is that they are expensive and i'm told they take up three slots.

http://www.arctic.ac/en/p/cooling/vga.html

 

[bystander]

Do you use two monitors? If so, the card has higher idle clocks than normal, which will add to your idle temps in addition to the problem with air flow.

 

[spentshells]

I jusy looked at the case it looks like a nicer version of the gama. Change the side fan to intake it will blow right on the cards. Make sure the back fan is venting out and if you can face the heat sink fan to blow towards it, and make the front fan pull in as well, my case is almost the same and my temps are good, try it out its a free 20-30 minute fix. It will likely clear that up nicely Im guessing 8 C chane at least.

 

[Martin 71]

Actually, ^that's my exact config right now. Except instead of having the cpu heatsink blowing out the back it's out the top where I have a 140mm fan mounted.

 

[spentshells]

Actually, ^that's my exact config right now. Except instead of having the cpu heatsink blowing out the back it's out the top where I have a 140mm fan mounted.

What about the rear fan ? is it pulling out as well ?

 

[Martin 71]

^yup

 

[spentshells]

If you are running the fan feeding your cards off of the motherboard crank it up or plug it in with an adapter to the PSU for full rpm's (very noisy)

 

[apache_lives]

if you have 2 video cards, the main will always run hotter as its displaying everything and doing the work

sounds like your cards are running normally - its all normal, nothing to worry about

video cards do run hot

 

[Martin 71]

Best answer selected by martin 71.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey