Very Hot 980ti in surround

[dylskee]

I got my 2 Evga 980ti yesterday and I got around to getting them installed today and what a damn mess! These things are awful!! I was using two of my brother's 980s for the last month or so and they ran perfectly, nice and cool and quiet. Got pretty good FPS in BF4 and and never broke 80° under full load running 3 2560X1440 monitors. The cards are all stock. When using his cards, at idle without the fans running the temps were 37°~40° and playing BF4 they hit 71°~80°.

Now, I uninstalled all drivers, wiped them with driver cleaner, installed my cards and installed the latest drivers. Just enabling the 3 monitors I checked temps and everything looked good. 37° Idle temps with the fans running about 1150 RPM, so I go to the Nvidia control panel and enable surround, I immediately see the temps rise to 47°, then start creeping to 67°! And that's idle, just sitting there. Playing BF4 on ultra in surround was impossible because the cards would throttle, and I don't like to run them over 80°, so I set a fan profile and had to run them @4200 RPM to stay under 80° in the game and they are crazy loud! FPS were lower than my brother's cards, I was only getting 50~75 FPS on ultra. I was hitting 90 with the other cards, I had to set it to high in order to hit 90~100 FPS with the TIs? I also have to run the cards at 2300 RPM @ Idle to keep the temps in the 40s. Is anyone else running SLI 980TIs with hi res monitors out there that can chime in? I'm not expecting to run super quiet and cool on air but this is a little over the top. I think I'm going to have to throw some water blocks on them, but if the cards are running this hot on air Idle I'm a little worries about keeping them. And I'm not getting any performance gains over a 4GB 980?

Before anyone asks about air flow, the computer is clean and newly built. No air restrictions and good air flow. The specs are in my sig.

 

[Janus67]

Are these reference coolers or ACX-style?

 

[dylskee]

Are these reference coolers or ACX-style?

No they are not the ACX style.

 

[wingman99]

Did you try running with the side cover off?

 

[Mandrake4565]

What cards were your brothers?

 

[EarthDog]

Res is kind of right in the way, but I doubt that is it... Welcome to the reference NVIDIA blower my friend... also, they are 250W cards versus 165W, so there is a lot more heat to dissipate.

But IIRC, I believe surround ramps up to 3Dclocks and speeds.

 

[dylskee]

Did you try running with the side cover off?

Yes, I actually left it off while I was gaming for a while and it made no difference. Still blazing hot!

What cards were your brothers?

Evga GTX980 FTW with the dual fans, great cards and ran very cool.

Res is kind of right in the way, but I doubt that is it... Welcome to the reference NVIDIA blower my friend... also, they are 250W cards versus 165W, so there is a lot more heat to dissipate.

But IIRC, I believe surround ramps up to 3Dclocks and speeds.

Yes I agree, the res is right in the way of my airflow but the fans still get air through to the cards. I guess I'm either going to have to replace the cooler, which sucks because they look pretty cool, or I'm going to have to water cool them which is going to cost more money! Well, I thank everyone for their replies! Looks like I'm going to need some airplugs for a while.....

 

[dylskee]

Is there any good after market coolers that would give me better cooling? I see a lot of people complaining about compatibility with the TI cards, with water blocks as well?

 

[EarthDog]

You have a reference card so there are a lot more choices out there.

 

[Janus67]

Arctic accelero coolers should fit a reference 980ti. Although they are triple slot.

 

[Mandrake4565]

Arctic accelero coolers should fit a reference 980ti. Although they are triple slot.

+1 have 2 of the Accelero III's and they're great. Even with the fans at 100% they are barely audible. One of which I purchased from Janus, some time back and it's still running strong.

 

[dylskee]

I think I'm leaning towards a couple EK water blocks instead, it's only money right?

 

[Lochekey]

I think I'm leaning towards a couple EK water blocks instead, it's only money right?

Do you have enough rad in your loop to support another 500 watts of heat?

 

[Mandrake4565]

I think I'm leaning towards a couple EK water blocks instead, it's only money right?

Just a suggestion, get a couple of universal blocks then. Full coverage are tough to sell and a lot of times not able to be used on next generations. Just put some heatsinks on the Vrm sections and you'll be fine, if you have good case air flow.

 

[dylskee]

Do you have enough rad in your loop to support another 500 watts of heat?

Not too sure about that, I have this rad > http://www.performance-pcs.com/xspc-rx360-triple-fan-radiator-v3-white.html#Details

Just a suggestion, get a couple of universal blocks then. Full coverage are tough to sell and a lot of times not able to be used on next generations. Just put some heatsinks on the Vrm sections and you'll be fine, if you have good case air flow.

Nah, I really like the EK FC blocks and I'm not concerned about resale. They perform really well and keeps the cards nice and cool. Thank you for the suggestion though, I appreciate the input and help. I'm not too sure if I can stuff another radiator in this case, I can put one in the front but then I lose my airflow through the case. Dammit, not sure what to do......

 

[wingman99]

I would just run them they have a 3 year warranty, you will probably sell them before that time.

 

[Lochekey]

That one rad is not gonna be enough. I would recommend at least another 480 worth of rad. That case should have plenty of room for more rads. I'm assuming your current rad is in the bottom side. Which means you can fit another 360 up top plus another one up front. Even with the rads you should still have decent airflow and since you are planning to use full cover blocks you will not need massive airflow to cool everything anyways.

 

[dylskee]

I would just run them they have a 3 year warranty, you will probably sell them before that time.

Yeah, I'm going to keep them. And you're right, I'm sure they will be sold before the warranty is up.

That one rad is not gonna be enough. I would recommend at least another 480 worth of rad. That case should have plenty of room for more rads. I'm assuming your current rad is in the bottom side. Which means you can fit another 360 up top plus another one up front. Even with the rads you should still have decent airflow and since you are planning to use full cover blocks you will not need massive airflow to cool everything anyways.

I didn't think so, and I can't fit a rad up top, it will hit the shroud on the mother board. I could put one in front for sure, but I was worried about killing the air flow. I know I don't need a lot but I do some some air flow through the case. I would do a push pull but the res is in the way.

 

[Mandrake4565]

I agree with Lochekey, a 360 rad cooling 2 980 Ti's and the 5930 is going to be a tall task. You might get away with it if you had the fans running at 100% all the time (also depending on the fans). Though, listening to that is a bit unpleasant.

 

[Janus67]

Even so, I doubt a 360 can handle 650w if everything was at load and especially overclocked