Crossfire 290x setup with Accelero Xtreme III Done!

ChristmasGT

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 17, 2007
Messages
340
Hey Guys,

Picked up 2 new Accelero Xtreme III coolers for my 290x CrossfireX setup. Confirmed that they installed just fine and are a HUGE improvement over the stock setup.

My idle is down to 36* which is a huge drop from the 46* I was getting. Fans are set to 100% and produce next to no noise, so huge improvement there as well.

I'll work on getting some max temps and OC results tomorrow as I have time.

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8 Hours of heavily modded ENB skyrim looks to have capped out at 69*
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Furmark 30 Minutes (Sorry couldn't get the second card to scale correctly, so it's a little bit skewed)
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Please post temps. Also, which mounting holes did you have to use (the same ones as 7970)?
 
Never had a 7970, but middle inside mounting holes worked just fine. Working on getting temps for you guys, but probably won't be until tomorrow.
 
Nice! Thanks for being the guinea pig! (I don't mean that as offensively as I realized that term could sound lol)
 
Great work, looking forward to seeing how this goes! :)
 
Hey Guys,

Left a heavily modded ENB series Skyrim opened up last night noticed that Card 1 is running noticibly hotter than Card 2, so going to reseat itand see if that evens things out a bit.
 
How's the performance in ENB Skyrim? What resolution display/textures are you running?
 
Nice! Thanks for being the guinea pig! (I don't mean that as offensively as I realized that term could sound lol)

No problem!

How's the performance in ENB Skyrim? What resolution display/textures are you running?

2560x1440 is the resolution I'm running. Skyrim plays absolutely fantastic, HDR and Bloom are messed up, and DoF was a rather pain to get working properly. Looks fantastic! 2k textures anywhere I can.

How long did it take you with the memory and vrm's?

The install takes a bit, at least an hour per card if you're including the VRM and Memory Cure times. Run's so much quieter even a 100% fan speed, that alone made it worth it, stock coolers are freakishly loud.
 
2560x1440 is the resolution I'm running. Skyrim plays absolutely fantastic, HDR and Bloom are messed up, and DoF was a rather pain to get working properly. Looks fantastic! 2k textures anywhere I can.

I heard about the AMD DOF issue with ENB. How did you fix it?
 
I ended up using a different enbeffectprepass.fx from another ENB series, then commented out

#define USE_SMOOTH_DOF

That did the trick!
 
Congrats! It must be nice to have that much spacing between cards. Your temps seem pretty good, I would be interested to see how they hold up under overclocking.
 
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Thanks for the pictures of Accelero Xtreme III on 290x! I was waiting for a confirmation that it fits.

I still haven't received my 290x, but I'll go ahead and order an Accelero Xtreme III. Was going to rip the one off my 7970 but its not worth the hastle.
 
Thanks for the pictures of Accelero Xtreme III on 290x! I was waiting for a confirmation that it fits.

I still haven't received my 290x, but I'll go ahead and order an Accelero Xtreme III. Was going to rip the one off my 7970 but its not worth the hastle.

I don't think you can use the 7970 one since the Die area is tilted I believe? The Accelero Xtreme III has the more "square" shape.

Going to try OCing it tonight and see how it goes!
 
I don't think you can use the 7970 one since the Die area is tilted I believe? The Accelero Xtreme III has the more "square" shape.

Going to try OCing it tonight and see how it goes!

You are right, I'll need the Accelero Xtreme III.
 
This makes me super happy. Since I already have the Xtreme III on my GTX570, I was thinking of sticking w/ Nvidia just so I could use this beast of a cooler.

Now that I know they fit on the 290x, I am sure I can slap one on a 290 and be happy!
 
you're brave, I simple dont trust the heatsinks that accelero provides for cooling the VRM
 
you're brave, I simple dont trust the heatsinks that accelero provides for cooling the VRM

Have you had a bad experience with them?

I've been using their coolers on my ATI/AMD cards since the x1900pro and had zero issues.
 
Yeah it will be interesting to see OC results to say the least. I have no intention on watercooling as my system isn't really set up for it, but if aftermarket air cooling can get this thing a decent o/c I might look at these cards.
Can you monitor vrm temps on the reference 290x? I only ask as my revision of the WF3 7950 doesn't have VRM temp sensors apparently.
 
Can I ask why you mounted all the Accelero heatsinks? Was there not already dedicated VRM/memory cooling onboard? Or was there and was it simply inferior?
 
Can I ask why you mounted all the Accelero heatsinks? Was there not already dedicated VRM/memory cooling onboard? Or was there and was it simply inferior?

The reference heatsink usually lays flat ontop of all the modules, it's all part of one large heatsink. You can't just remove the GPU heatsink.
 
Have you had a bad experience with them?

I've been using their coolers on my ATI/AMD cards since the x1900pro and had zero issues.

Looks like they may not be enough for these cards, both cards started producing a crazy amount of Coil-Whine near the VRM's.

The coil-whine would go away the second afterburner fired up and kicked on the fan speed profile I made (100% all the time). However, BF4 seemed to randomly crash on every map, including loading. Core temp never got above 75* on either card, so I'm thinking it has to be the VRM's.

Tried about a 150 different things, but in the end I think it was to the VRM's not getting enough cooling with the Accelero setup. RIght now I can't really recommend the setup at all, it's best to just wait for the Non-Reference coolers to hit at the end of November. These cards in gaming inside of Uber-Mode are just way to hot and loud, once you get in a game you'll need headphones depending on where the case is.

I went back to the reference coolers and the coil-whine immediately went away without afterburner being on as well. Also was able to play BF4 again without crashing.
 
hmm..

Arctic Cooling did update their website and now list 290x as compatible with Accelero Xtreme III.

Doesn't necessarily mean they tested, maybe they only checked geometry.

I'm getting my card today along with an accelero xtreme III. Plan was to play BF4 with stock cooler most of the day tomorrow. If card runs ok, sunday I'll install aftermarket cooler.
 
hmm..

Arctic Cooling did update their website and now list 290x as compatible with Accelero Xtreme III.

Doesn't necessarily mean they tested, maybe they only checked geometry.

I'm getting my card today along with an accelero xtreme III. Plan was to play BF4 with stock cooler most of the day tomorrow. If card runs ok, sunday I'll install aftermarket cooler.

Yeah, Core and Memory are A-OK, temps look wonderful there. But given the high TDP of the card I don't think it's enough for the VRM's to handle with the heat-sinks they provide.
 
Have you had a bad experience with them?

I've been using their coolers on my ATI/AMD cards since the x1900pro and had zero issues.

Yes I have, I installed one on my 7970 and the temps the VRM temps went above 110C. I reinstalled and the same thing happened so I did some research and found this was not unusual. I put on the ref cooler and the VRM never got close to 110.

If you look at the VRM cooling on the windforce or direct cu, the massive difference in the level of VRM cooling compared to the accelero is immediately apparent.

It's a shame too because I really think the gpu heatsink and fans on the accelero are far better and quieter than either the gigabyte or asus coolers.
 
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I really wanted to install an Accelero, but it's those VRM temps keeping me away.
 
what you can do is take a dremel and cut the plate off of the reference cooler and then use that plate instead of the heatsinks that the accelero comes with
 
Looks like they may not be enough for these cards, both cards started producing a crazy amount of Coil-Whine near the VRM's.

The coil-whine would go away the second afterburner fired up and kicked on the fan speed profile I made (100% all the time). However, BF4 seemed to randomly crash on every map, including loading. Core temp never got above 75* on either card, so I'm thinking it has to be the VRM's.

Tried about a 150 different things, but in the end I think it was to the VRM's not getting enough cooling with the Accelero setup. RIght now I can't really recommend the setup at all, it's best to just wait for the Non-Reference coolers to hit at the end of November. These cards in gaming inside of Uber-Mode are just way to hot and loud, once you get in a game you'll need headphones depending on where the case is.

I went back to the reference coolers and the coil-whine immediately went away without afterburner being on as well. Also was able to play BF4 again without crashing.

Any update here? BF4 crashes on everyone's computer after about 5 minutes for the first 5ish days, and I am finally not crashing now.

I wouldn't blame the card/cooler based on BF4 crashing.

Give it a whirl again now that DICE has fixed most of the crashing bugs.
 
I actually ended up selling them. The problem was it was showing problems in other games, still have the coolers but think I'm going to hold out for the non-reference 290's. Good God they're cheap for what you get.

Core and Memory were cooled awesome by the Accelero, this cooler just doesn't supply an adequate solution for VRM's though.
 
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The issue is the driver will not bump up the fan speeds enough to keep the VRM's cool because the GPU is cool enough. You have to manually put the fans on a fan controller and ramp them up.

TomsHardware did it in their review and it worked well.
 
The issue is the driver will not bump up the fan speeds enough to keep the VRM's cool because the GPU is cool enough. You have to manually put the fans on a fan controller and ramp them up.

TomsHardware did it in their review and it worked well.

I actually set the fans to 100% default via MSI Afterburner since they were so quiet anyway. The weird thing is, until the fan profile I made kicked in, there would be an ungodly amount of Coil whine specifically from the VRM's.

Once the reference cooler was back on I didn't get a peep. The heatsinks on the VRM's were definitely applied correctly as well.
 
I actually set the fans to 100% default via MSI Afterburner since they were so quiet anyway. The weird thing is, until the fan profile I made kicked in, there would be an ungodly amount of Coil whine specifically from the VRM's.

Once the reference cooler was back on I didn't get a peep. The heatsinks on the VRM's were definitely applied correctly as well.

You should of tried to improve the vrm heatsinks by using copper ones. They dissipate much more heat. I have the Accelero Extreme 7970 and it keeps this card cool and silent(GPU 56c full load), but in furmark one of my vrms overheats up to and over 110c. The other stays around 75c. In games though both stay in the 60ies. Ive yet to try the copper heatsinks but from what Ive seen it should work much better. Also replacing the the thermal glue with thermal pads has shown good results.

Note: Forgot to mention the furmark run was @ gpu 1200(1.250v) mem 1600 (1.610v)
 
You should of tried to improve the vrm heatsinks by using copper ones. They dissipate much more heat. I have the Accelero Extreme 7970 and it keeps this card cool and silent(GPU 56c full load), but in furmark one of my vrms overheats up to and over 110c. The other stays around 75c. In games though both stay in the 60ies. Ive yet to try the copper heatsinks but from what Ive seen it should work much better. Also replacing the the thermal glue with thermal pads has shown good results.

Note: Forgot to mention the furmark run was @ gpu 1200(1.250v) mem 1600 (1.610v)

Know where I can get a set of Heatsinks for the VRMs? I was really impressed on how the cooler was doing outside of that.

I do plan on getting a set 290/x's again, and if I can cool the VRM's it'd save me a ton of money vs water.

As a quick edit, I bet these would work really well for the VRMs..this would make the Accelero an awesome add-on for the card. The aluminum fins just aren't enough for the VRM's..the above poster is probably right however going the copper route.
 
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The problem isnt your fan profile, the problem is even at 100% there isnt enough roational speed to cool those vrms because the controller uses pwm. at 100%, you are like at 40% of the top rpm of the accelero.

use a +7v direct power and bypass the controller.

should cool the vrms fine.

as a side note: AMD is concidering switching the fan scheme from pwm to rpm with a driver update, if they do, the fan profiles should be much more effective in getting higher rotational speed and cool those vrms down.
 
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