AMD Crossfire concerns (question about heat)

spartan0078 · 09-17-2012, 09:42 AM

I was thinking about getting a second 6870 since they are so cheap at the moment, and I hear they scale well in xfire. But I've never done SLI or Xfire before. Are there any overheating issues I should be concerned about with two of these rather large cards being beside each other in my rig? I have an ATX tower, M59 to be precise, it's in the open and I have a side fan blowing into the case.

-RASCAL- · 09-17-2012, 12:43 PM

You shouldn't have a problem running Crossfire 6870's in your chassis. The 6870 aren't HUGE power hungry heaters; as long as you have adequate cooling / airflow, your going to be fine.

I see that the NZXT has a rear exhaust fan and side intake fan included. Install your 2nd 6870 and check the temps. If it's a little warm for your taste, add a front intake fan...and the top exhaust if you want. (I don't know why NZXT didn't included a front intake fan).

Without a doubt though, adding in another 6870 will increase the internal system temperature by a little bit.

Regarding about Crossfire and SLi scaling, yes with the Radeon HD 6000 and 7000 series, GTX 500 and 600 series, the scaling a much better than previous generation cards. In certain games you can get ~95% scaling - or quite close to the "theoretical" 2x performance.

By the way, what motherboard and power supply (PSU) are you using?
Hope you have a decent quality 550W-750W unit.
Just a note, some GPUs don't play nice when in a PCI-E X4 (x16 size) slot. IMO, it's better to use PCI-E X8 or X16 slots. Performance is loss relativly small using X4 slots, but it's just...some cards don't like it.

spartan0078 · 09-17-2012, 03:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by -RASCAL-

By the way, what motherboard and power supply (PSU) are you using?
Hope you have a decent quality 550W-750W unit.
Just a note, some GPUs don't play nice when in a PCI-E X4 (x16 size) slot. IMO, it's better to use PCI-E X8 or X16 slots. Performance is loss relativly small using X4 slots, but it's just...some cards don't like it.

Thanks for the answer. I'm using an OCZ 650watt modular PSU, bronze certified. And my mobo is a Asus Maximus Gene 3, I know it supports SLI and Xfire, that's the reason I bought it, as I hadn't decided on a GPU at that time.

borg_7_of_9 · 09-18-2012, 01:27 AM

with the single spacing on the motherboard the top card will run warmer assuming its a double width/2 bay card, air flow between the cards can be quiet bad on single spacing mother boards...

keep an eye on top card temp's!

My HD4890oc Zelman cooled top card use to over heat on my single slot spacing motherboard was fine on my older double spaced board

Ended up putting a fan on the end of the top HD4890 to help with air flow, did the trick until I got 2x HD7970's and water cooled them

09-17-2012, 09:42 AM	#1
spartan0078 Join Date: Jan 2011 Reputation: 1596 Posts: 2,816	AMD Crossfire concerns (question about heat) I was thinking about getting a second 6870 since they are so cheap at the moment, and I hear they scale well in xfire. But I've never done SLI or Xfire before. Are there any overheating issues I should be concerned about with two of these rather large cards being beside each other in my rig? I have an ATX tower, M59 to be precise, it's in the open and I have a side fan blowing into the case. Last edited by spartan0078: 09-17-2012 at 10:23 AM.

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09-17-2012, 12:43 PM	#2
-RASCAL- Join Date: Aug 2011 Reputation: 457 Posts: 764	You shouldn't have a problem running Crossfire 6870's in your chassis. The 6870 aren't HUGE power hungry heaters; as long as you have adequate cooling / airflow, your going to be fine. I see that the NZXT has a rear exhaust fan and side intake fan included. Install your 2nd 6870 and check the temps. If it's a little warm for your taste, add a front intake fan...and the top exhaust if you want. (I don't know why NZXT didn't included a front intake fan). Without a doubt though, adding in another 6870 will increase the internal system temperature by a little bit. Regarding about Crossfire and SLi scaling, yes with the Radeon HD 6000 and 7000 series, GTX 500 and 600 series, the scaling a much better than previous generation cards. In certain games you can get ~95% scaling - or quite close to the "theoretical" 2x performance. By the way, what motherboard and power supply (PSU) are you using? Hope you have a decent quality 550W-750W unit. Just a note, some GPUs don't play nice when in a PCI-E X4 (x16 size) slot. IMO, it's better to use PCI-E X8 or X16 slots. Performance is loss relativly small using X4 slots, but it's just...some cards don't like it.

09-18-2012, 01:27 AM	#4
borg_7_of_9 Join Date: Nov 2007 Reputation: 2604 Posts: 12,712	with the single spacing on the motherboard the top card will run warmer assuming its a double width/2 bay card, air flow between the cards can be quiet bad on single spacing mother boards... keep an eye on top card temp's! My HD4890oc Zelman cooled top card use to over heat on my single slot spacing motherboard was fine on my older double spaced board Ended up putting a fan on the end of the top HD4890 to help with air flow, did the trick until I got 2x HD7970's and water cooled them