Cooling 2x 6970s in CrossFire on Air?

[ramdacc]

I have 2x HIS 6970s in CrossFire and I am looking to replace the stock coolers with something that is both quiet and effective. The stock temps are around 85c under load and so loud you can hear them on the other side of the house.

I am having trouble deciding which aftermarket cooler to try because all of the ones I can find appear to be too big to work in a crossfire setup. Does anyone here have any suggestions? I am stumped! Needing help!! Thanks!

 

[StrikeMike2k]

I'm having a similar issue; I'm running 2x XFX 6950s in CrossFire. I'm interested in an air cooling system as well. My two dual slot cards sit with about 3mm of space in-between them making the top card (with the fan in the middle) not get any airflow. The temps of this top card reach above 100C under load. I'd like to know of a good air cooling solution rather than spending a few hundred on liquid cooling for it.

 

[amuffin]

Get one of those nifty gpu coolers that run off of a pcie slot?

 

[ilysaml]

Also you might try the Arctic Accelero XTREME, reported as excellent for cooling with Galaxy cards.
http://www.arctic.ac/en/p/cooling/vga/18/accelero-xtreme-plus.html?c=2182

 

[StrikeMike2k]

Those solutions still don't seem to solve the problem of not having enough space for the fans to get any air to them.

I was thinking about going with something like the Thermalright HR-03 GT which can be mounted two ways. One where the fins will loop over the back of the top card towards the CPU and then strap a fan onto that. That will give the fan enough air-room to cool it (I think, this should work) And to cool the VRM and memory I'd go with Enzotech MOS-C1 heatsinks and Enzotech DMR-C1 heatsinks

Or, my other choice is to go with a $500 watercooling system, if I went this route, I'd also include the CPU in the loop with the 2x GPUs.

 

[ilysaml]

what MOBO do you have ?

 

[amuffin]

or you could have thought about getting a mobo that had pcie slots spaced apart more.......

 

[StrikeMike2k]

I have the ASUS X58 Sabertooth. The first two PCIe slots are the only x16, and the third one is too close to where my PSU is, the dual slot card wouldn't fit. And my PCIe slots are 1.6" apart (every other slot). Yes, I could have gotten a mobo with the PCIe slots further apart... but I'd rather put that money into water cooling. It will allow for more overclocking. ;-)

Thanks guys.