I recently upgraded from 2 5770's in crossfire to 2x XFX 6870's for some extra graphical goodness. Long story short its been weeks of misery re installing windows, drivers, bsod's, tweaking and testing.

I also run eyefinity 5760x1080...

So finally I got everything running well apart from the PC just took to randomly switching off in game. No warnings, errors or anything. Trawling through the event log I was getting an error that the system was shut down due to gpu overheating. So grabbed a copy of MSI afterburner and have been monitoring the temps...

Basically either card installed solo runs about 40 deg idle and 60 deg flat out. But if installed together (not in crossfire, so one card is idle) the primary card hits 102-103 deg.

If I enable crossfire the primary card easily gets to 105 deg and at 107 deg is where the pc shuts down. I have swapped cards in the bios so the other card is the primary and then set up monitors and crossfire on that, but whichever card is the master hits the limit. The slave card also stays around the 60 deg mark.

I have even tried underclocking the master card by 50 mhz to try and keep the temp under control but even so it still hits 105 deg!!

The cards are brand new, and speaking to XFX they said the ideal max temp is about 80-90 deg, although they could withstand 100, but me thinks these temps will kill them swiftly.

I don't want to buy 3rd party heatsinks, as for one thats gonna cost a lot extra, and void the warranty. If I was to do that I could just have got better cooled cards in the first place...

I can't get any extra cooling through the case, as thats got 2x20cm fans in and a 12cm fan in already running flat out.

I have tried each card in each position and get same results. Also tried case open and it actually overheated faster.

MB is crossfire certified, although there is literally no space between gpu's, there is a 3rd pci slot, but cant use that as its only a x 4 slot, and the double height card won't fit in the space anyway.

Also tried both ccc 11.12 and 12.3 drivers, and get same results, and tried forcing the fans to 100% in ccc but they still overheat.

M B: Gigabyte ex58 usb3, 3.2ghz i7, 6gb 1600mhz ddr3 ram. Case collermaster enforcer. 1x20cm intake fan front. 1x20cm exhaust top, 1x12 cm exhaust rear. (open slots for extra intake). OCZ ZT 750w psu. 2x XFX 6870 687A-ZHFC.

Can't say I had any of these issues with the 5770's and when overclocked some way they were not that far behind. These new cards have no thermal headroom for overclocking, hell they won't even run at stock speeds.

I'm at a loss with what to do apart from rma these and go and buy something with a cooling system that works stuck to it!

Anyone got any ideas wtf is going on?

 

 

 

Did you not see the eyefinity forun?

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Intel I7 960 @ 3.87ghz *Intel DX58SO *HIS HD6970 2gb *Corsair TX650M *2x4gb Corsair XMS3 *WD Black 1TB *Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit *Gateway HD2401 24" 2ms 1920x1200  ***Asus N71Jq laptop *Intel I7 720QM Processor *Mobility Radeon HD5730 1gb *8gb Ram *Windows 7 64bit  ***Acer 5750 laptop

* A clear conscience is usually a sign of bad memory *

 

That's your problem.  There are only two practical solutions, and neither is free or especially easy to implement.  Either get a new motherboard that has an extra slot between graphics cards, or convert to water cooling.

Just because a motherboard is Crossfire capable doesn't mean it's all card Crossfire capable. For instance, like your board, yes it is Crossfire capable, but without any space between the cards it is limited to single slot cooler cards.

Oh, and if you didn't know the HD 6800 series replaced the HD 5700 series, so you actually didn't really get much of an upgrade there anyway

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Crosshair IV Formula, Phenom II x4 965 w/ Corsair H60, 8 GiB OCZ Platinum DDR3 1600, XFX HD 7970 Ghz, 512GB Vertex 4, 256GB Vector, 240GB Agility 3, Creative X-Fi Titanium w/ Creative Gigaworks S750, SeaSonic X750, HP ZR2440w, Win 7 Ultimate x64

Ah but heres what is puzzling me. In this set up the master runs ato 103 deg + while the slave, which is also under 100% load is only at 63 deg.

If I swap the roles (in bios) so the other card is the master, (and reset up crossfire etc) it then goes from being 60 odd degrees to 100 deg + while the other card, that was cooking in its own juices reverts to 60 odd degrees. Even though the cards are doing exactly the same thing in the same places under the same conditions!

So whats going on is the monitor output adding a 50 deg load to the cards?

The ambient air temp between them at full load gets to about 53 deg, with ambient case of 34, room 20...

I have that same card, and it runs like hell.. Anytime, 95/102C..

The only way to run it "cooler" was changing the thermal compound, and clean it every month (very polutioned city, where I live), so I can spend hours at a freshes 95C..

Is that specific model of card that runs reeeeaally hot, dude..

I`m thinking on getting a second one, but I`ve been skeptic on that because of the temps that this babies can get.. 

 

Best regards..

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8320 @ 4,5 / 990FXA UD5 / 7950 @ 1150-6200 / Switch 810 / H80 / 16 GB RAM / 23" 5760x1080 / SSD 64GB RAID0 / Tr2 750W

You can't select which one shows up first in the driver list from the BIOS.  It's the same card (the one with the obstructed fan) overheating.

The reason for your problem has been made clear.

 

er yes you can. In bios I can select the pcie slot the system uses to boot first. Then when you enable crossfire in ccc whihever card is the system primary becomes the master. Or GPU 1

It is not possible to choose the master or slave in ccc though.

Only the master card will output to a monitor as the slave monitor outputs become disabled.(I know because I have connects to both cards).

Thus it is possible to set either the top or lower slot as the master, and the lower card has no fan obstructions.

However my point is that even if I switch the master to the lower unobstructed slot the excessive temperature would still follow it...

Anyway its all academic now as am RMAing them as they are not fit for purpose. They would be ok in a single use setup but the cooling is barely adequate for that, certainly its not suitable for the advertised crossfire configuration. Card manufacturers should be well aware of the pcie positions on motherboards, this is not anything new, and the cooling should be designed appropriately.

The design of the cooling on the 5770's is such it sucks air in from one end and blows it out the side/other end. The fact that the card is in close proximity to another or a surface then becomes immaterial.

I would not mind then if the said that that model was not suitable for such use and they directed to a different one.

Have put my 5700's back in which I can overclock to 920mhz with no issues, or stupid overheating, and they are double slot cards....

Well my previous CFX setup were 6870's and the card up top never got that hot! 70°C max! I had one open slot between the two though.

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Desktop: PSU CM Silent Pro M700 - AMD Phenom II X4 955 BE @ 3.92 GHz - Gigabyte GA-990XA-UD3 - Corsair XMS3 8 GB DDR3 @ 1333 MHz - Philips 27" 1080p - Western Digital 500 GB - Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 @ 1000/1425  - SteelSeries USB Soundcard - X360 Controller - Case CM Storm Enforcer - Catalyst 12.11 - W7 x64 SP1

You were still looking at the temperature of the obstructed card, period.  It's the unsuitability of your motherboard that's the problem, not the cards.

Just because the substantially less powerful 5770's don't overheat as much in that configuration doesn't mean it isn't the configuration that's the problem.

If you want to use multiple high-end graphics cards, you need to cool them properly, something you manifestly were not doing.