Kfa2 gtx670 oc ex do not sli them

darrensimmons

Thought I would let you guys in on a nasty purchase I made today with 2 x KFA2 GTX 670 to run in SLI.

On their own great cool cards but in SLI an utter nightmare.

Being a little hasty in my purchase I failed to notice the fan config in that it does not expel air from back but blows it out into the case.

The result was a bottom card with a load temp of 50(great) and a top card with a load temp of 100+(not great).

I replaced my 580sli set up which runs top card 68c max load so reading the new cards ran a lot colder I was not at all worried and didn't research enough.

I have re installed my lovely cool 580's now and have dicided not to upgrade untill 780's arrive as I did get to play with the 670's in BF3 for 30 mins and to be honest, the difference wasnowhere near enough to warrantthe extra cash taking me from80 to 110 frames.

So they are great fast cards but unless you are going to liquid cool them forget SLI and just get one.

deluxe · 06-19-2012, 13:43 | posts: 174 | Location: Netherlands

With X58 most manufacturers weren't thinking so well, so they left only one slot between the pci-e 16x slots.
Thankfully nowadays most boards have 2 slots between them so SLI/CFX setups have some room to breathe.

Agent-A01 · 06-19-2012, 20:11 | posts: 5,626 | Location: USA

you need atleast one slot in between cards like those to have ample temperatures otherwise u get what u got. high temps

---TK--- · 06-19-2012, 21:10 | posts: 14,712 | Location: New Jersey, USA

yeah you need space between the cards, cant stress that enough

Gripen90 · 06-19-2012, 21:41 | posts: 680 | Location: Denmark

Not cards fault, but buyers need to be aware that the fact most aftermarket coolers are great with single card systems but in SLi what really is needed is radial-coolers which disperse heat out of the case.
I never recommend running SLI if you don't have at least 2,5cm space between the cards when running with a non-radial cards together.

larsbaby · 06-19-2012, 22:08 | posts: 117

I have to defend the cards as I have the exact same ones in SLI.
Idle temps are 30c and under load max is74c but in most cases sits at 65c.
I have a 30mm gap between the 2 cards. If your MB is designed in such a way the PCIE are stacked on top of each other with just a couple of millimetre then your going to get 100c temps.
I cant talk for all OC cards but from the cards i've seen including the Asus DirectCU and the Gigabyte windforce 3 they don't exhaust the hot air.
It might be better for you to swap them for some reference ones as it looks like they exhaust the heat out the back. Maybe someone can confirm this.

darrensimmons · 06-20-2012, 13:29 | posts: 592 | Location: BRISTOL uk

Quote:

Originally Posted by larsbaby

I have to defend the cards as I have the exact same ones in SLI.
Idle temps are 30c and under load max is74c but in most cases sits at 65c.
I have a 30mm gap between the 2 cards. If your MB is designed in such a way the PCIE are stacked on top of each other with just a couple of millimetre then your going to get 100c temps.
I cant talk for all OC cards but from the cards i've seen including the Asus DirectCU and the Gigabyte windforce 3 they don't exhaust the hot air.
It might be better for you to swap them for some reference ones as it looks like they exhaust the heat out the back. Maybe someone can confirm this.

Yes this is the case, I see that now, it was a complete oversight. As I said, single formation they were great so perhaps I'll keep my 580's for know