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I am using 2 (3 once I have PCI raisers) PowerColor HD7950s, I guess it's the reference design. Doesn't make for great cooling, it's always around 80 Celsius, and if I want to push the hashes, the system gets unstable. Aside from moving the whole rig to my garage...

http://www.powercolor.com/us/products_features.asp?id=387 (http://www.powercolor.com/us/products_features.asp?id=387)

Anyone here knows, has done, tried, to remove the whole cover and leaving only the fan on? Usually the cooling is designed for a chassi with air in/out at specific points. Since the typical rig is just "open", it might help without the cover?
Thoughts?

(water cooling would be "cool", have that on my gaming PC with an old 5850, it never goes over 42 C and is silent... but a bit expensive for a hobby mining rig....)

My gut feel would be "no"....  the cover and fan as designed are to ensure channelled airflow exactly over/through where it needs to be...  leveraging the venturi effect for flow efficiency and pressure.  Without the casing, much of the airflow across the heat exchangers would be lost, making the cards more likely to overheat.  I am happy to be corrected on this...

Personally, my rig has 3 x R9 290's, and after dealing with the noise for the past couple months, I've finally got fed up and have just pulled the trigger on 3 of these:

http://www.watercoolinguk.co.uk/p/Aqua-Computer-kryographics-Hawaii-for-R9-Radeon-290X-edition-acrylic-glass-nickel-plated-version_42990.html (http://www.watercoolinguk.co.uk/p/Aqua-Computer-kryographics-Hawaii-for-R9-Radeon-290X-edition-acrylic-glass-nickel-plated-version_42990.html)

Oh yeah...  and the rest of the watercooling gear to go with them.  Bloody expensive, but will save my sanity and drastically improve the WAF  ;)

I figure something like that as well :(
maybe one can add some additional fans simply. If I look at 7950s with 2 or 3 fans, the casing is pretty open.
water-cooling is a no-brainer, price aside...

Yes, I was able to improve cooling tremendously by just placing a couple 120mm fans blowing directly onto my GPU's.  There was so much heat generated by the GPUS, there was in issue obtaining "cooler" air from the room  into the case.

Better buy some additional fans.
I can recommend this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185054

It's a fucking beast, 3000 RPM and it can even stand on the table, you don't need to attach it anywhere. It might fly away though. :p
Only costs like 7Euro or something, don't know about dollars.

The fan is attached to the "cover" by 2/3 screws under the sticker,you can see the wires going to the fan.The "cover" is held on by screws or just snaps on/off.

Removing the "cover"/fan will leave you with no cooling  ::)

As said,just add a fan or two,you'll have to experiment with placement of those fans to see where they work best in your situation  ;)

Remember to blow out your cards out often,dust & hair & all kinds of crap clog up the heatsink, rather quickly.

I blow my cards out about every 2 months or so,amazing how fast they fill up  :o

Edit:some of the non-reference cards (squirell fan on the end is a reference type),like this one,you may have to remove the heatsink assembly to get to the screws that hold the "cover" on.

My XFX6950 was like that  :(