7970 CF. GPU 2 gets extremely hot at times

It's not unusual. My GPU2 also gets quite a bit hotter. 86C is not considered excessively high.

Anyway, any chance you could post an image of inside your case? Generally the only thing that would really help is air flow.

86C is fine, and the temps won't ever match. Mine have gotten into the high 90s and they're still chugging along.

Are the cards close together? I wedged something in between to gain a little separation and placed a fan blowing directly on them. Worked really well. The best thing you can do is get a case that has a fan in the side that will blow on your cards.
-Bruce

Typing from my son's box w/ twin 560 Ti's OC'd about 25 % (1020 Mhz) at the moment. Running OCCT's GPU torture test I showing about 75C on the top card and 73C on bottom. Have windows open and its about 65F outside.

The case however has 3 fans in front of HD cages plus a case window fn blowing air between the cards. While I keep them on lowest possible settings, if I turn them off, temps rise to 83C.

Well I'm using a Corsair 500R case, with 2 side 140mm fans, plus a 120m fan at the bottom of the case blowing air directly to the 2nd gpu, also, two front 120mm fans blowing fan inside the case(I removed the extra drive carriage to max airflow). Its a bit tight fit, the wire management is fairly clean. Nothing to obstruct the airflow of the components. Temp in the house is around 21c. Say for instance I'll be playing a game.. They'll both be around the 50s, for no reason(GPU usage remains the same) gpu 2 will shoot up to 80ish at times, while the second will stay the same. It seems unusual that the 2nd gpu sometimes will shoot up to like 20-25 degrees hotter than the other, especially that gpu since it has a more optimal airflow than gpu1 which should be the first. I am using a custom fan profile using Afterburner, it's set fairly high to keep temps fairly low.

There is one thing that might have caused it, I had afterburner and trixx running at the same time(During startup). I disabled Trixx, I have yet to test anything since. That could cause conflicting fan profile conflicts maybe, I noticed one time the cards were idle and the card was around 60c, but the fan rpm listed as 0. Not sure what the deal was, I restarted the computer and all was normal, I have checked the charts for fan rpm during the heat spikes and the fan rpms seems accordingly. So maybe it was just the fan profile conflict causing the fan to not kick up as it should, I dunno. I'll run some checks, if it keeps happening should I just rma it? It does not overclock fairly well without kicking up the volts so maybe a new one will be better lol..