Overheating Crossfire 4850hd's, need advice on third party cooler?

[fatboy187]

HI, i built this sytem a couple years back but never used it for serious gaming, it has two radoen hd4850s crossfired, but i ve been having overheating problems with a couple simple sports games, nba 2k10 and mlb2k10, and crysis, i want to add two zalman vf1000's to each card, but i dont know if the one slot space between the two boards will be enough to house the first cards zalamn cooler, can anyone suggest a low profile cooler to put on them, thanks,

 

[jeepster50]

First off what are your temps at idle and load?
Second, the vf1000s are good coolers but IMO are over priced and won't help much with the 4850s.
3rd, hows your case air flow? Adding case fans might optimize case component cooling.
And have you cleaned everything out lately (dust)?

 

[fatboy187]

idle temp: 85c
load temp: 110c

I have a big nzxt case with 5 case fans and 1 panel fan "door" its fairly clean all the fans are running tho in my opinion not very fast, maybe i mis configured the crossfire link, any ideas?

 

[jjb8675309]

sell them and buy a 6870:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102948

not worth it to run crossfire for around a 5850 worth of performance and no dx11, id sell those things on ebay and throw in a little extra money that you would have spent on coolers and buy yourself a 6870 for 154 AR and free shipping

 

[fatboy187]

if i get the 6870 should i get a third party cooler for it? i dont think i have pcix16 2.1

 

[jeepster50]

Running that hot, it's just a matter of time before one or both get damaged, as above posted I second dumping them on ebay but I'd go with a non-reference 6950, they run @ load in the low 60s and with kick a-s frame rates.
Edit; The GTX560 Ti is also a good choice.

 

[jjb8675309]

yeah +1 Id go with either the MSI TF2 or ASUS DC2 6950 or gtx 560ti, mine holds a solid 1ghz core oc with great temps

 

[fatboy187]

one quick quesiton on the crossfire setup, my cards have two bridges on them,and they each came with one crossfire ribbon, am i suppose to connect both crossfrie ribbons or just one? the bridges are labled ja1 and ja2,

 

[fatboy187]

nevermind i get the ribbons are just an internal connectors for the two graphics dvi ports i think ne way, someone clairfy , i just want to make sure its not the connection thats heating it up before i scrap it

 

[jeepster50]

One crossfire connecter is all that's required but I've read that using both is sometimes helpful, in what way don't know but it wont hurt.
Edit; Those dvi connecters may impede air circulation and in turn increase temps.
2nd Edit; Try taking out bottom card and see what temps you get. That will show you the effect on crossfire temps.

 

[fatboy187]

one board is running at 85c, i m sorry but i m kindof a novice to the new setups, will i be able to run a 2.1 pcix vga card on a mb that has pcix 2.0

 

[jeepster50]

Yes, 2.1 cards are compatible with 2.0 PCI express slots.
Edit; Something to read; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express

 

[fatboy187]

hey thanks jeepster! i like the idea of upgrading anyways, these cards have been nothing but trouble,

 

[jeepster50]

After upgrading your graphics, do some research on case cooling. I feel those temps you have now can be improved on a lot, consider new fans and/or a fan speed controller.
Good luck and come back and let us know how you made out with everything.

 

[photonboy]

*Tech answer:

You definitely should wait for the new graphics cards. They will use roughly 2.5x less power for the same performance. I can't speak to price. Available in:

- AMD 7000 series (Q4 2011)
- NVidia 600 series (Q2 2012)

*Also, I highly recommend you read the article on micro-stuttering which highly suggest no one get an SLI or Crossfire setup. Toms main page.

Summary:
Get a new card for at least $200 from AMD or NVidia, depending on how long you can wait and your budget.

My guess is that a $250 AMD card near Christmas will have at least 2x the performance of a current NVidia GTX560Ti.

 

[cats_Paw]

I had those in crossfire as well, and i used therlmaltake DuOrbs on them, having idle temps of 27 C and loads under 60 with a moderate ambient temp (16-22 i think).

Thou at this point i also would not suggest buying coolers as 2 coolers might cost almost the same as a new gpu that will work at least as good.
The thermaltake duords take 2 slots (the gpu slot+ 1 extra slot).
The third slot can be used but you have to remmber the air movement will be significantly worse if you do that (i have a tv tunner card, but its quite small).

Hope this helps a bit.

 

[fatboy187]

this from zalman usa:

Hi #%#^&,

In regards to your question, the following cards from Zalman are compatible:
VF2000 LED, VF950 LED, VF770, VF900-Cu LED, GV1000 Z-Machine, and VF1000
LED.

As long as the coolers can run one-to-one (one VGA card + one VGA cooler) as
normal then doing crossfire format is fine.

Thank you for inquiring about our line of Zalman products.


Thank you,

Tech Support Department
Zalman USA, Inc.



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