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Concerned about my GPU setup, is it safe?

Post Date: 2015-10-31
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blendedmark88 View Drop Down
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Posts: 7 		  Quote blendedmark88 Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Topic: Concerned about my GPU setup, is it safe?
    Posted: 31 Oct 2015 at 12:20pm
I recently purchased a Slade with an pre-installed gtx 960 and I put in 2 980 ti's:






I'm a little concerned as the 960 is an open air style, which will be blowing on the PSU. On the other hand, I fear that if I put it on the top, then the heat will be blowing into the circuit board of the 980 ti. Ideally I wanted to put the 960 on top so I could designate for my display. I have no room above the 980 ti, in case you can't tell from the images.

Which would be the better setup?
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bprat22 View Drop Down
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Posts: 20391 		  Quote bprat22 Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 31 Oct 2015 at 12:35pm
I would remove the 960 and just use the sli 980ti's.

Any reason you left in the 960?

The fans on the cards pull air into the card and not blowing out unless something changed. The 960 Strix pulls air in the heat sinks and out the sides of the card.

What motherboard do you have and can it run three cards in sli? Just checking.

Your Slade if left stock might have a heat issue getting the heat from the 960 Strix away from the 980's, especially the middle card in your array. Unless you removed the side panel and installed fans in the side cover.

Sli 980ti has a 900 watt recommended psu from some reliable sites.   The 960 is very energy efficient but is still going to push the psu if all three are under load

Just things to consider.

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blendedmark88 View Drop Down
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Posts: 7 		  Quote blendedmark88 Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 31 Oct 2015 at 12:46pm
First off, thanks for the quick reply!

I had planned on using the 960 for my 2k monitor, since I had read having a designated GPU for a display would free up the other two for better performance (I'm using this PC for animating/ heavy rendering). Perhaps my logic is flawed? I bought the 980 ti's separately and couldn't get a build without a GPU built in already, in case you were wondering.

I have an ASUS-X99-DELUXE USB 3.1 (Intel X99 Chipset). I had to pull out the USB 3.1 card to fit these in.

I use Blender, which from what I've read doesn't do well with SLI and instead they recommend to use them as separate GPU's.

I'm still pretty new to PC's (have been an avid Mac user for almost 15 years) and having to re-learn the ins and outs. Any additional insight would be appreciated. I'd hate to have to just take out the 960 and have it be a waste, but I'd rather that then risk over heating.
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bprat22 View Drop Down
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Posts: 20391 		  Quote bprat22 Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 31 Oct 2015 at 1:27pm
Got it. You know more about Blender, etc then I .    Not sure your monitor setup but a 960 on a 2k monitor seems a little light on rendering your work.   You can run multiple monitors on your 980's in sli or use them individually, no sli bridge, for superior display work across multi monitor.

As far as heat, download and use HWMONITOR to check the CPUs and gpu heat during heavy use.   You want all the processors, cpu and gpu, to run in the low 80's or lower.   I like 70's.   Centigrade not Fahrenheit.   

Nice setup. Your mobo is excellent.

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blendedmark88 View Drop Down
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Posts: 7 		  Quote blendedmark88 Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 31 Oct 2015 at 4:08pm
I will probably end up removing the 960 to avoid overheating if it doesn't provide much of a benefit. IF I were to keep the 3 GPUs, would you recommend the 960 to be placed above, in the middle, or on the bottom? Is there a setup that would lessen the risk of overheating?

Thanks for the heat monitor suggestion, that will definitely help. By any chance, is there a program (either built in or downloadable) where you can see how much PSU your computer is using? That may give me a better idea of whether to remove the 960 altogether if it's pushing it too hard.

Thanks for all the insight and complements about my setup, it's been a loooong process.
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bprat22 View Drop Down
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Posts: 20391 		  Quote bprat22 Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 31 Oct 2015 at 4:28pm
Your best bet and most accurate is for about $20, get a Kill A Watt meter off Amazon, Newegg.    Reads total rig usage, realizing a psu's efficiency tilts the usage a bit.

I would normally want the hottest card on top, assuming there's a fan up there to kick the heat out.

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db188 View Drop Down
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Posts: 2115 		  Quote db188 Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 31 Oct 2015 at 6:17pm
i would put your higher performance cards in the x16 slots with the most bandwidth (usually the first and third slot from the top) and worry less about heat issues. 

sli scaling is horrible past 2 cards.  you get about 90% from the one extra card and about 20-30% from the third card.  in all honesty, those two 980ti's should be more than enough to run a game on a separate monitor while rendering on another (or in the background) with the other gpu.   

in any event the 960 is anemic for gaming at 1440p.  i personally believe the 960 is superfluous.  when software developers begin to take advantage of DX12 and code specifically for improved multi-gpu configs we can readdress current limitations.  right now, you don't want performance bottlenecks, excess heat and power usage for minimal performance tradeoffs, if any. 
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