Will this upgrade be worth it?

[cyborg34572]

Thinking of upgrading from 3x GTX580's to 2x GTX680's. Me wanting to do this is because i am just sick of how hot these cards are ( damn Fermi's), i just built my brother a PC with a GTX680 and i was monitoring his temps while playing heavy games, and wow it was in the 30-40's full load, my cards idle at those temps damn =/.

But yeah i cant even play my gorgeous heavily modded Crysis (which i want to play really bad) because my top card shoots up to 90-93c, that's just insane i dont want to burn out my card.

So question is, will the upgrade be worth it performance wise? and lower temp benefits?

 

[2fast4thetown_down]

The sli 680s will beat the 690 in performance if that gives you a general perspective...it will b hot and more power demanding than a 690 if yo want pure performance get the sli 680s if you want to save a little money,get a cooler and less power demanding card get the 690

 

[cyborg34572]

Yeah but will the performance upgrade be worth it?

Comparing 3x GTX580's vs 2x GTX680's there probably is not a big difference when it comes to gaming, maybe 10Fps difference and that's what makes me think its not really worth it but then again these high temps are really irritating me and i would like to play my Crysis without shooting up to 90c.

When will the new 700 series be out?, i might just wait for those if the upgrade is not really worth it.

 

[unksol]

not worth the upgrade. sounds like you need a better case/cooling

 

[cyborg34572]

not worth the upgrade. sounds like you need a better case/cooling

I dont think thats it, my case cooling is perfectly fine, i have a Cooler Master Storm Trooper case (which is excellent for airflow and alot of free space) packed with 2000RPM fans in every fan slot for intake and exhaust, airflow is excellent. But ive tried cleaning up the fan/heatsink from dust and re-applying thermal paste and still exact same temps.

Im planning on buying an Accelero Extreme Plus II aftermarket cooler to see if that can reduce its temps. If not then ill either have to upgrade to 2x GTX680's (which would be a complete waste of money since there would be pretty much no noticeable gains in gaming performance as i already get over 60Fps in all of my games, something like 10-15 more Fps wont make a difference) or not play Crysis at all =[.

 

[unksol]

might try reordering them. the top card always gets the worst, but some cards are more efficient and naturally run at lower temps than others. one might do better up there. if their fan design dumps heat in the case instead of using a blower your kind of screwed though. you do have vsync on I assume?

 

[cyborg34572]

might try reordering them. the top card always gets the worst, but some cards are more efficient and naturally run at lower temps than others. one might do better up there. if their fan design dumps heat in the case instead of using a blower your kind of screwed though. you do have vsync on I assume?

Yeah i always have Vsync on in my games as i hate screentearing so im capped at 60Fps which should lower my temps but that reference card is a nightmare still. I have tried different configs for case fans and video card position but that card causes issues no matter where it is pretty much, if its the lowest card then it heats up the cards ontop of it pretty much. I hope the Accelero works if not then im kinda screwed for Crysis, someone remind me not to buy reference cards ever again.

 

[unksol]

You COULD just remove it and try 2. I've only used crossfire but last I looked the 3rd gpu never did as much for fps in either SLI or crossfire. helped with microstutter but that wasn't a huge issue for nvidia anyway. sucks to have it and not use it, but you might still hit 60FPS

 

[cyborg34572]

You COULD just remove it and try 2. I've only used crossfire but last I looked the 3rd gpu never did as much for fps in either SLI or crossfire. helped with microstutter but that wasn't a huge issue for nvidia anyway. sucks to have it and not use it, but you might still hit 60FPS

I would remove it but i actually need it for my heavy AA solutions with crysis, im kinda crazy when it comes to jaggies. With only two cards i get laggy =/

 

[unksol]

LOL. idk then. I can't see how that case wouldn't be able to handle the cooling unless some fans were fighting. try a custom fan profile? or is it at 100% already? some of my reference cards don't crank the fan up till its cooking and never go 100%. you could try and underclock them 10%. probably still plenty of power. or undervolt them a little if they can take it and stay stable. I think I'm out of ideas besides the new cooler lol

 

[cyborg34572]

LOL. idk then. I can't see how that case wouldn't be able to handle the cooling unless some fans were fighting. try a custom fan profile? or is it at 100% already? some of my reference cards don't crank the fan up till its cooking and never go 100%. you could try and underclock them 10%. probably still plenty of power. or undervolt them a little if they can take it and stay stable. I think I'm out of ideas besides the new cooler lol

I have a fan profile but highest ive set it too is 85%, idk if 100% will be safe for the card. Will it be okay? will the fan be damaged or something?

 

[unksol]

I have a fan profile but highest ive set it too is 85%, idk if 100% will be safe for the card. Will it be okay? will the fan be damaged or something?

it wont hurt it. it might be loud but that's about it. I just turn up my speakers when i do it. LOL.

 

[cyborg34572]

it wont hurt it. it might be loud but that's about it. I just turn up my speakers when i do it. LOL.

Im going to try that tonight, probably will be loud but im okay with that as long as it doesn't hurt the card. Any programs i can use to have seperate fan profiles for each card though?

 

[unksol]

not sure. I've never done it on nvidia cards. in my AMD drivers I think i can manually set each card but its just one speed and doesn't change with temperature. undervolting them is definitely worth a shot too. it would knock temps down some. if they stay stable

 

[cyborg34572]

not sure. I've never done it on nvidia cards. in my AMD drivers I think i can manually set each card but its just one speed and doesn't change with temperature. undervolting them is definitely worth a shot too. it would knock temps down some. if they stay stable

Well this one is superclocked but i knocked down its clocks to match the other cards, but that must mean it had higher voltage to begin with to match its overclock, which means i can knock it down and it might still be stable because i put the clocks down!, your a genius!. Cant wait to try that out tonight as well!.

Ill ramp up the fans and undervolt the bastard, if im lucky i might get away with 85c in Crysis and will be safe to play!

 

[unksol]

it should automatically match the clock of the lowest card(at least crossfire does). I don't think it does anything with the voltage though so that's definitely a good idea. if nothing else the fact it was a superclock card implies it ran better than a normal chip so even if its at stock volts now you might be able to go below stock with the clock lowered to match the others

 

[cyborg34572]

it should automatically match the clock of the lowest card(at least crossfire does). I don't think it does anything with the voltage though so that's definitely a good idea. if nothing else the fact it was a superclock card implies it ran better than a normal chip so even if its at stock volts now you might be able to go below stock with the clock lowered to match the others

Thanks for the advice, really appreciate it, you have given me hope i might still be able to battle this problem without spending money. Ill definitely try undervolting and higher fanspeed tonight and see what happens, hope it all goes well. Im going to use MSI Afterburner for controlling fanspeeds, i think you can have seperate fan profiles for each card, im not sure but wel see. Its getting late over here so im gonna head to bed, thanks again for the help, Will report back results tomorrow.

 

[unksol]

good luck. it 4AM here. I'll check back hopefully. if I don't forget lol

 

[cyborg34572]

good luck. it 4AM here. I'll check back hopefully. if I don't forget lol

Alright reporting back, good stuff so far. By default the cards voltage was at 1.088v for its overclock, so i turned down the overclock to match the other cards and then matched the voltage as well making it 1.025v, its very stable with kombustor tests and heavy gaming. The idle temp also went down from 50-53c to 40c with the same fan profile settings. But as for trying out high fan speed, i coudnt do it at first because apparently they locked it out to 85% maximum fanspeed, but luckily EVGA actually released a bios update for the card that unlocks higher and lower fanspeed, so after that i set my fanspeed to hit 90% when 75c is hit (thinking of upping this to 80c instead) and when playing Crysis for about 2 hours the temps never went above 77c , and imo that is a big improvement over the 90-93c it was spiking up to in only a couple minutes of playing.

I am going to try and lower its voltage further more, see if its still stable at 1.000v, if it is then that is great, lower temps for everyone!. And its great that 90% fanspeed takes care of the temp problem im having in Crysis, and also good news i still have the option to turn on 100% fanspeed if ever needed by an even heavier game, or maybe there will be a level in Crysis that is more demanding and will heat it up even more idk.

But will continue to test this out and try lower voltages, will report back again with results. Thanks again for all the help btw.