Best 2-slot non-rear vent aftermarket cooling for 580GTX 3-SLI

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izusaga

Limp Gawd
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Oct 4, 2005
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Hi there! I have an Antec P193 hosting a 580GTX in tri-SLI.

I have a custom venting solution with 120mm flexi tubing connected to the 120mm rear vent in my case spitting the hot air in the case out the rear vent. The 3 580 GTX's run incredibly hot - usually something like 88-92c load each, causing my home office to heat up dramatically regardless of my venting situation. I'd like to put an aftermarket cooler on similar to the Accelero XTREME Plus II solutions (to spit the hot air into the case to be vented out the back flexi-tubing instead of venting out the rear), but in my case it has to be a 2-slot solution since I cannot use a 3-slot cooler like the Accelero XTREME Plus II with a tri-SLI configuration.

Any recommendations if I want to do this project with air?
 
88-92c isn't that bad for those cards in tri sli, that's actually pretty good.

Are you venting this outside of your office or into the room? If it's just venting into the room it doesn't matter what temperature the cards are running at, your room is still going to heat up just the same.

If you want to cool the cards down some more bring in as much fresh air into the case and over the tops of the cards as possible. If you want to cool your office down get a fan or air conditioner. It doesn't matter what temperature the cards are running at, they are going to be dumping the same amount of thermal energy into the room. You have to remove that to make the room cooler.
 
It's a highly air-conditioned room, but being so small and running 3 systems with heavy graphics card setups the room heats up quick and becomes uncomfortable after a few hours of any 3d applications.

Essentially, I have these: http://www.coolerguys.com/cgfvdt120.html

One end is attached to the 120mm exhaust vent on the Antec P193, the other end is attached to an insert I fabricated for the window of the room - meaning the heat from the tower is being exhausted outside the air conditioned room (and outside the house via the window). Ideally, I'd like to replace the 580GTX heat-sinks with coolers that do NOT exhaust the air from the back of the card, and instead circulate inside the case so that heat can be jettisoned via the tubing I have going outside. The only problem being most solutions, such as the Accelero P2, are 3-slot solutions because the HS and Fans are larger than the OEM cooling solution. Were I using a single card this would be fine, but with 3 cards squeezed into a 3-PCI-E board there isn't any additional room making this not solve my issues.

What I really need is a 2 slot stock cooling replacement with heavy fan action. Preferably the best 2 slot air GPU cooler I can buy. This way, and contrary to what you stated above, the cards are dumping their heat OUTSIDE the house, not inside the room.

Make sense?
 
I have a hard time believing there isn't a fan-cooled aftermarket solution that is 2-slot. =P

I'm not going to trouble myself with the hassle/cost of water for a 24/7 setup on 3 machines.
 
i didn't say there wasn't one, only that if i was to do more than 2way sli i would consider water. especially if you consider 88-92c "incredibly hot" for 3 580s.
 
I've never seen one, but I haven't really looked for the 580. I couldn't find one for the 480 though, and they are pretty much the same. There really isn't much of a market for 2 slot aftermarket coolers, I don't imagine, most people want the superior cooling of 3-slot solutions, and the GTX 580 stock cooler was good enough that a 2-slot cooler might not improve on it much.
 
my-name-here said:
i didn't say there wasn't one, only that if i was to do more than 2way sli i would consider water. especially if you consider 88-92c "incredibly hot" for 3 580s.
Click to expand...

By incredibly hot, I mean the total of 7 580's I have in this room are venting so much heat into the room it becomes quite uncomfortable quite fast.

I simply want to vent from the case outside. Thats all.
 
As someone else mentioned, you wont make the room cooler by making the cards cool. The thermal energy will remain the same, all you'll do is get the cards closer to the ambient temps which will remain the same. You need to counter that by adding in cooler air from somewhere. Just exhausting hot air will not work, since the A/C will still have to pump in the air that's getting relocated.

Try adding a second vent to the room, opening the door and fan to pull cool air from the rest of the house into the room, getting a dedicated window unit to cool the room or getting one of those portable A/C units (Do note that they do vent hot air out, so you'll need it to fit near a window)
 
He's trying to vent the hot air from the cards outside the room through the vent system he has installed in his case. So he wants the hot air from the cards to remain in the case, to be vented outside, instead of blowing out of the case into the room. It has nothing to do with keeping the cards cooler, instead it is about where the hot air goes.
 
I understand what you're attempting to do but it still might be easier to cool the whole room than extracting just the heat from you cases. Are you cases air tight with only one output for the hot air?

What about a 12000 BTU AC system in the corner or window and a vent with a couple 200mm fans in it constantly blowing the rooms air out the window or up into your attic thru the ceiling? It would sound like a server room but damn if that can't cool the room down.

You can pick up 12000 BTU window units for 250 at costco.
 
This may make me sound like I'm frustrated, but at this point I need people to understand that I already have everything in place for my setup and am not interested in buying a water cooling solution or a air conditioning unit for my home office. I simply need a recommendation for a 2-slot aftermarket heatsink for 580GTX's. I'd rather not blindly buy one at random and am looking for any recommendations from current users. No other suggestions will apply to my request.
 
Only cure is an air conditioner, getting better coolers for your 580's is going to add even more heat to your room, the better your pc's coolers are, the hotter your room gets.
 
The 3 fan cooler on the Galaxy 580 MDT card might fit the bill. It is a 2 slot cooler with 5 heat pipes. I do not however know where to get that cooler separately. I'll look around a bit, out of curiosity.


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814162092


I have a similar problem that you have, a small home office room with 2 machines in it. With just the one on most of the time, the room gets 10-15 degrees F hotter than the hallway outside of it. If I close the door it is even worse. When gaming it can get uncomfortable to say the least. After 2 hours of BF3 with the door closed the room will go from 75 deg to 95+ deg easily. If you had a vent system that vented the hot air near the ceiling of the room into the attic or outside that might also be a solution to get heat away that did not get vented out your tubing system.

Or, as some suggested, water cooling the cards, but have the exhaust air from the rads vented outside through the tubing vent system you created. You can more easily remotely position the rads away from the machines, than try to control where hot air goes with an air solution. If you wanted to go crazy with water you could build a rad box near where all the machines reside and have the water lines going to a bank of rads inside this box with the exhaust air blowing through a vent system out the window etc. That way you could use a larger attic vent fan of some sort to pull the air from the radiator box. I dunno if any 120 mm fan will have enough "umph" to push the air satisfactorily through a corrugated plastic tube very far. That may be a problem with your exhaust tubing as well. Did you ever check to see what kind of airflow you get from the exhaust side of the tubing through your window insert?
 
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Adzsask said:
Only cure is an air conditioner, getting better coolers for your 580's is going to add even more heat to your room, the better your pc's coolers are, the hotter your room gets.
Click to expand...

If I put an aftermarket fan on my 580's in a very tight case and have the air flow being vented INSIDE the case due to the aftermarket HSF (as opposed to being vented out the rear exhaust with the stock HS), coupled with the fact that, as stated above in my detailed descriptions of the setup, the hot air from the case is being exhausted via flexible tubing from the 120mm rear fan of the case and venting out the window using a custom insulated insert DIRECTLY outside.. I don't follow your argument on how that setup (ambient case air being sucked in COLD from 2 top 140mm's and the side 200mm of the Antec P193, then hot air inside the case being vented via the 120mm rear exhaust directly outside the room via flexi tubing) would increase my room temperature. Please explain to me what key mechanic I'm missing that is making the room heat up.
 
Kibagami said:
The 3 fan cooler on the Galaxy 580 MDT card might fit the bill. It is a 2 slot cooler with 5 heat pipes. I do not however know where to get that cooler separately. I'll look around a bit, out of curiosity.


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814162092

Did you ever check to see what kind of airflow you get from the exhaust side of the tubing through your window insert?
Click to expand...

1) Thanks! I'll take a look at that cooler for sure.

2) I get GREAT airflow. As mentioned in the post above this one, I have 2 top 140mm's and one 200mm side fan all sucking the cold air in the room into the case, and a 120mm on high venting exhaust from the rear of the case out the flexi-tubing I linked in one of my previous posts screwed into an insulated insert in my window. If I go outside with the machines running on a cold day there is a LOT of hot air being vented out the back. The only issue curently is the 3 GTX's are also venting their heat out the rear exhausts from the cards. If I slapped an aftermarket HS/F similar to the Accelero XTREME which has fans directly over the heatpipe/heatsink solution, and then made sure all of the rear ports were sealed up tight, I think about 90% (or, possibly more) of my graphics card heat would be spit outside the office via the window with the 120mm running full blast. I'll need to test to be sure, but all the ghetto engineering checks out.

I really appreciate your reply. Very helpful and you clearly actually read what I typed.
 
I think most people reading your post were unclear about what your objective is / was.

You said:

1. You think the cards run too hot.
88-92C is well within operating range for the Fermi chips - I think even 100C is OK. Are you just uncomfortable seeing those temps on your cards or are you trying to get more performance / OC?

2. Your office gets too hot
As other mentioned using a different cooler will have no effect on the heat entering your office. You either need to use a cooling system that removes the heat (like a water loop that goes through the wall to rads in another room) or use an A/C or vent the PCs out of the room.

3. You want 2 slot coolers.
I get your constraints - you can't use the triple slot coolers, but I still don't know what you expect to gain even if you find a cooler that meets your 2 slot criteria.

What are your goals here?

Are you running Cuda/Compute stuff or playing games? I think a pair of 680s will run rings around 3 580s in gaming and use a lot less power but I got the impression you were doing something more serious.

edit:

OK, I read it for the third time and now I get it - your PC is vented out of the room, but the reference cards push the hot air into the room - you need the hot air to stay in the case so it can be flushed out of the room with your vent thingy.
 
DoubleTap said:
OK, I read it for the third time and now I get it - your PC is vented out of the room, but the reference cards push the hot air into the room - you need the hot air to stay in the case so it can be flushed out of the room with your vent thingy.
Click to expand...

Correct.
 
I have a very hard time thinking a 120mm will be able to vent the heat from the cpu and 3 580s, unless you have a high speed delta in there. From how it sounds, you have a lot of intake and only one exhaust, so the hot air from the case will come out of every vent and crack in your case. You will have to modify something to get a cooler room.
 
Yeah I had that thought too when I first replied to the OP. You ideally want more fan CFM exhaust than intake, if feasible.
Ultimately, I think water cooling and remotely placed rads or one BIG rad with a large fan in a mostly sealed box set to vent to the outside would be best if he intends to keep all those machines in the same room.

There's various ways to do what he wants, but I think he is somewhat married to using that tubing kit and window exhaust setup he currently has.
 
hiodie said:
I have a very hard time thinking a 120mm will be able to vent the heat from the cpu and 3 580s, unless you have a high speed delta in there. From how it sounds, you have a lot of intake and only one exhaust, so the hot air from the case will come out of every vent and crack in your case. You will have to modify something to get a cooler room.
Click to expand...

With the intake fans on low and the exhaust fan on high there is roughly ~20% CFM airflow being exhausted in excess of that being sucked in - assuming nerd math and the specs of the fans used is reliable.

I have no desire to learn/setup/pay for a water cooling solution for this setup. Zero. I prefer low maintenance set and forget for 24/7 boxes.
 
How about some ghetto modding to rig up another 120 exhaust (the tubing) that is attached to the gpu exhuast? You probably cannot really capture the one gpu that has video cables, but you should be able to seal around the other two relatively well. Not sure if your window has room for 6x120 vent tubes, but seems to be a simple/cheap route
 
Maybe my knowledge of thermodynamics is limited, but as I understand it, a card that consumes X amount of energy produces Y amount of heat....and whether you exhaust it quickly through extra fans, or slowly through limited fans, there should be the same amount of heat ultimately entering the room.
 
Need to read more carefully...the heat is not going into the room, but out of the window though an exhaust vent.
 
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