New GIGABYTE 6970 over 6950's

T

tubular

Gawd
Joined
Apr 10, 2008
Messages
982
So after buying two 6950's (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7073901) with the intention to unlock the shaders and slightly OC them to give me two 6970's I have discovered that they run way to hot for my system. At factory BIOS and clocks my two HIS 6950's run at 50 C (for the secondary card) and 60 C (for the primary) at Idle, and that is with me manually bumping the fan speeds up to a constant 50%. In games that push the cards (like Metro) the primary will get up to 85-90 C, unless I then push the fans to about 70%, in which case the temp doesn't quite hit 80 C.

Either way, those temps are just too hot for my comfort, especially considering the metal plate on the top side of these cards (in terms of in-case orientation) gets very hot to the touch, and I have a delicate looking audio card in the next slot over from my primary card.

Anyways what all this means is that I could do one of two things in my mind.

1) Buy a VGA cooler for this sucker
2) Buy a different card

Now the VGA coolers that I found are around $60-75. For that price, I could actually upgrade to a full 6970 and not have to unlock or OC anything.

Now this finally brings me to the GIGABYTE I mentioned in the title. The GIGABYTE GV-R697OC2 is the card that I found for the job here.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125381

Looks like it would have some of the best cooling of cards I've found, and actually at the price of the 6950's plus cooler I found, these GIGABYTE cards would actually be cheaper.
I know that this card will dump like 80% of its heat directly into my case, but above these cards I have some damn good ventilation.

So my question to all of you is, for the price, and for a card that WILL keep themselves a LOT cooler, is this a good choice? Is there something else that would be a lot better? Build reliability and customer service are certainly factors I consider btw.

Thanks :)
 
In a thread I posted in the AMD forum, I had asked for opinions about this, yet I got no reply.

If anyone could chime in and post your thoughts about it, I'd appreciate it as well.
 
Would you sell 6950, I'm interested in both :D

I also unlocked my Sapphire and noticed almost no change in temps :S How far away do you have your cards? Which mobo do you have and which pci-e slots do you use? If possible, try to move further away if you have 3 or more pci-e slots. Else I'd recomment Prolimatech Mk13, it's very goor option if you have CF, because you can mount up to 2x120mm on the side. First try to remove cooler, clean thermal grease and get new one, AS5 or MX-4, maybe it would help if you check contact with your GPU, I putted 2mm hard rubber between PCB and the backplate, where cooler is screwed around GPU, so it has better contact. I have temps @ 36°C and automatic fan speed, mostly on 30-35% on idle, when I play games the temp never reaches 53°C with speed never more than 60% with customized fan speed using Sapphire Trixx, the card is also OCed to 989/1548 w/o any voltmods, just using Trixx, voltages are also the same, because I have sapphire 6970 bios, which has support for different voltage controller than 6950 has.

Else you go water, I can sell you 2 Swiftech KOMODO HD6900 :D
 
hun77777 said:
6970 if your budget allows
Click to expand...

My budget certainly allows, I'm just trying to figure out the best 6970 for the job.

xBanzai89 said:
What case do you have?
Click to expand...

A giant beastly monster of a case that I am absolutely in love with.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119138

Boki_ said:
Would you sell 6950, I'm interested in both :D

I also unlocked my Sapphire and noticed almost no change in temps :S How far away do you have your cards? Which mobo do you have and which pci-e slots do you use? If possible, try to move further away if you have 3 or more pci-e slots. Else I'd recomment Prolimatech Mk13, it's very goor option if you have CF, because you can mount up to 2x120mm on the side. First try to remove cooler, clean thermal grease and get new one, AS5 or MX-4, maybe it would help if you check contact with your GPU, I putted 2mm hard rubber between PCB and the backplate, where cooler is screwed around GPU, so it has better contact. I have temps @ 36°C and automatic fan speed, mostly on 30-35% on idle, when I play games the temp never reaches 53°C with speed never more than 60% with customized fan speed using Sapphire Trixx, the card is also OCed to 989/1548 w/o any voltmods, just using Trixx, voltages are also the same, because I have sapphire 6970 bios, which has support for different voltage controller than 6950 has.

Else you go water, I can sell you 2 Swiftech KOMODO HD6900 :D
Click to expand...

1) Sorry, haha, I am returning them to Tiger for a refund.

2) They are about an inch apart.

3) I have the Asus P6T Deluxe

4) No room to move down to the 3rd slot with the PSU

5) Unfortunately that cooler, plus fans, would put me at a higher cost than just buying those two Gigabyte cards outright, and two 6970's that already come with a BA cooler are a pretty big win in my book, haha
 
Last edited:
Before ruling the cards out I would first check

1: case airflow
2: reapply TIM on cards

6950s and 6970s are the same card but 6970 have more volts so they will run no cooler than the 6950s will...

I would definitely check case airflow...

The only examples i can give is in my phantom case my cards are 45 Top 35 Middle On air.

Since they are on water now i have no examples lol. You also could have just gotton a hot batch



EDIT: after reading the recent post your case does not have great flow, even if you were to get the new cards with the cooler without good flow the temps may drop a few degrees. I have also seen those cards skyrocket temps in cases with bad flow...
 
tory said:
Before ruling the cards out I would first check

1: case airflow
2: reapply TIM on cards
Click to expand...

That is what I am worried about. That case you have is bad ass indeed. I am hoping you have more fans in that then the default one on the bottom as that case was designed for water cooling if I remember correctly.

You mentioned the cards are right on top of each other. Right there is causing the major temp issue. To be honest I do not know if getting better vga coolers will even help in that case. You will only make the inside temp rise due to the design of the 6970 you want (not putting hot air outside) and the top card will just be blowing on the bottom one causing it to be even warmer.

I would suggest even looking at a different mother board to get a better layout for the cards.
 
I have all the stock fan spots filled with non-stock fans (except the bottom).

I did some reading and see that the case does indeed have some airflow issues. I can easily replace the bottom intake fan with a non-stock option that will pull a lot more air, but what else should I do? Also, how do I measure airflow? hahaha, I know my fans do kick out a ton of air, but if that isnt being properly channeled then it would of course be a problem.
 
I don't know if even replacing the bottom fan will make much of a difference to be honest. If you could somehow rig a fan to blow on the video cards with in the case that would help quite a bit.

EDIT: I found the sucker. I was looking for a fan I saw one time for computers that you put on the motherboard that is movable. It is the Antec Spot Cool Case Fan. Its not a bad price at all. That along with two higher rated fans that push more air may do the trick on the bottom intakes. Don't cheap out and get some high flow fan that is wicked loud either. There are good quality fans like the Scythe Gentle Typhoon that have good air moving and are quiet.
 
Last edited:
tubular said:
I have all the stock fan spots filled with non-stock fans (except the bottom).

I did some reading and see that the case does indeed have some airflow issues. I can easily replace the bottom intake fan with a non-stock option that will pull a lot more air, but what else should I do? Also, how do I measure airflow? hahaha, I know my fans do kick out a ton of air, but if that isnt being properly channeled then it would of course be a problem.
Click to expand...

You should replaced the stock bottom fan with a high cfm / high static pressure fan that's bearable to you. You need to take out that plastic coolermaster bar in the middle of the case. It'll hinder your airflow. I, for one, was thinking of mounting either a single 120mm or two into that plastic bar and have it blow air onto the video cards. I have the same case. Actually 2 of them. Gotta love the space inside these beast.
 
xBanzai89 said:
I don't know if even replacing the bottom fan will make much of a difference to be honest. If you could somehow rig a fan to blow on the video cards with in the case that would help quite a bit.

EDIT: I found the sucker. I was looking for a fan I saw one time for computers that you put on the motherboard that is movable. It is the Antec Spot Cool Case Fan. Its not a bad price at all. That along with two higher rated fans that push more air may do the trick on the bottom intakes. Don't cheap out and get some high flow fan that is wicked loud either. There are good quality fans like the Scythe Gentle Typhoon that have good air moving and are quiet.
Click to expand...

Didn't know those existed actually, haha, I think I might pick one of those up. And ya, I will be going with a high quality fan. The last one I replaced in my case, I went with this beast
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5472138

That thing is huge though, will need to make sure it will fit down there.

nxcess said:
You should replaced the stock bottom fan with a high cfm / high static pressure fan that's bearable to you. You need to take out that plastic coolermaster bar in the middle of the case. It'll hinder your airflow. I, for one, was thinking of mounting either a single 120mm or two into that plastic bar and have it blow air onto the video cards. I have the same case. Actually 2 of them. Gotta love the space inside these beast.
Click to expand...

I never even installed that plastic bar, hahah. And ya, the space inside is just incredible.
 
tubular said:
Didn't know those existed actually, haha, I think I might pick one of those up. And ya, I will be going with a high quality fan. The last one I replaced in my case, I went with this beast
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5472138

That thing is huge though, will need to make sure it will fit down there.



I never even installed that plastic bar, hahah. And ya, the space inside is just incredible.
Click to expand...

Silenx? I ordered 4 of their fans back a few years ago. All of them had their bearings go in less then 3 months. I was really disappointed.
 
xBanzai89 said:
Silenx? I ordered 4 of their fans back a few years ago. All of them had their bearings go in less then 3 months. I was really disappointed.
Click to expand...

Really? Crap, I'll keep an eye on that, though Mine has been running strong for a bit here.
 
Well actually I think I may install that fan in the bottom port right now, since I just received my FREE Antec H20 920!
mwahhahahahah
 
they shouldn't get that hot on load really,my 6950 gets to around 65 degrees at load and 45 at idle.
 
Ok, so I installed my H20 920, as well as moved that fan I linked above down to the intake for the Chassis, and ALL of my temps went down tremendously, so now I am only getting to like 65 under load! This is amazing! hahahahah
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top