Swapping slots on my xfire 7950GB cards had major temperature changes?

[Butter]

I bought an XFX 7950 Black edition because of the good deals (free games; Under 200 AR). This is my first time trying a crossfire setup and I'm really enjoying it . Minor gripes but nothing too big

I paired it with a 1 yr old Sapphire 7950 that's running in my main PCIe slot. The XFX was placed 1 expansion slot away from it. My temperatures in Unigine Heaven and Tomb Raider was 71-77c, which I felt was reasonable for this setup.

Since the XFX is a newer card, I thought I'd switch it to the Main slot. Funny thing is, once I swapped it with the Sapphire card, I was getting temps 85-91C. Strange.

Anyone else had similar experiences? I swapped it back and the temperatures dropped back to 71-77c. Both setups idle very similarly. I do notice one less heatpipe on the XFX card, but I can't see that making such a huge difference. Perhaps the metal shroud on the XFX card causes surrounding temps to be higher?

PS, Zero Core technology is kind of a neat feature, although when I use GPU-Z it automatically re-enables the fans.

 

[HOODedDutchman]

Xfx cooler is crap compared to sapphire dualx. That plus its sucking in the heat coming from the bottom card. Top card always runs hotter, but if you ran the cards indivudually the xfx would run hotter than the sapphire. Meaning when you put it on top it gets too hot. Xfx probably runs 10C hotter in the first place not running xfire.

 

[Butter]

Xfx cooler is crap compared to sapphire dualx. That plus its sucking in the heat coming from the bottom card. Top card always runs hotter, but if you ran the cards indivudually the xfx would run hotter than the sapphire. Meaning when you put it on top it gets too hot. Xfx probably runs 10C hotter in the first place not running xfire.

I've heard that before about XFX coolers too and thought of that too. Perhaps that's the only real conclusion here

 

[RaDeonXtreme]

it's the cooler for sure.