[Request for Info]Efficient airflow design for GIGABYTE AORUS GeForce GTX 1080Ti

[BLife]

Hi,
 At my place heat and dust are a major issue, and so I decided to move all of my open air rigs in to server case like structures. When I look at the current design, the fans are placed like this

    EXIT
   ^   ^
   |     |
| G | G |
| P  | P |
| U  | U|

  ^    ^
   |      |
FAN FAN
  INTAKE

But the gpu has such a design that I believe this setup may not be efficient in reducing the temperature. Because of all the plastic that is covering the sides, and the 3 fans doesn't seem to move much air around. This is the GPU I am talking about.
 
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125953&cm_re=1080ti-_-14-125-953-_-Product

In my case average temperature is around 35C during the daytime and when I set the fans at 80% and power at 230w the temperature is still above 70C but when I place a 120mm 60CFM fan in front of the GPU like below

F G
A P
N U

temperature drops to around 60C even when I drop the GPU fan speed to 50% and leave the power at 230W. This made me conclude that those fans are not efficient in move much air around.

My experiments and results so far.

Setup : Fan at front

Initial Setup:

F G  F G  F G F G  F G  F G
A P  A P  A P A P  A P  A P
N U N U N U N U N U N U

Pros : This setup appears to be the best at reducing the temperate.

Cons: Each GPU has to be shielded from the next to prevent the exhaust of one getting sucked into the next as intake, This setup occupies more space.

Modified Setup:

F G |  F G  | F G |  F G  | F G |  F G  |
A P |  A P  | A P |  A P  | A P |  A P  |
N U|  N U  | N U|  N U | N U|  N U  |

Note: The shield has to be at-least .5 time more than the height of GPU to prevent the air from overflowing

Test results:

Option	No external fan |	Initial Setup |	Modified Setup |
Fan Speed	80%	70%	50%
Temperature	75	70 overall/Fist GPU at 60 |	60 overall
Power	230	230	230
Outside Temperature |	35	35	35

Setup : Fan at side

Setup:
    EXIT
   ^   ^
   |     |
| G | G |
| P  | P |
| U  | U|

  ^    ^
   |      |
FAN FAN
  INTAKE

Pros: No need for shield between GPUs, Don't take much space

Cons : No reduction in temperature maybe I have 60CFM fans? I am waiting for the 200CFM one's

Test results:

Option	Setup
Fan Speed	80%
Temperature	75 overall
Power	230
Outside Temperature	35

Setup Currently Testing: Fan at Side but Cross GPU

Setup:

| G       | G       |
| ^ P    | ^ P    |
|  | ^ U |  | ^ U |
   |  |   ^  |  |   ^ 
   |  |    |   |  |    |
  F  A  N  F  A  N

In this setup the GPU instead of being straight it will be at an angle that will cove the fan from side to side. For this testing I ordered some 140MM 200CFM fans, and will post the results once I get hold of them.

In the meantime I request anyone who has any idea to please share it here.

Thank you for your time 

Regards,
BLife

[bathrobehero]

These cards are amazing at cooling but they're not designed to have airflow going parallel to them:



These cards want air from where you would normally put another GPU in case of mining and as you can see the direction of the heatsink blades and the plastic cover, pushing air to them lengthwise from either direction is pointless.

In a typical gaming computer with one card there's plenty of space to pull air from.

Let's look at this typical 4U server case setup sketch:


Orange = GPU
Green = air direction the cards are desidned
Red = case fan air direction

As you can see if anything, the case fans might even work against the GPU fans. And the output of the hot air on the top and bottom is also blocked in a closed case which makes it even worse.


And they're also very wide cards (5,5 cm) so in a typical 445cm 4U case there will be only 1,43cm between cards and the walls in case of 6 cards. And that 1,43cm is where they're trying to pull air from.


I have a couple of these cards in an open rig with about 6-8cm in beween them and they're the coolest. I'm also trying to move away from open cases to server cases because of dust but I'll be leaving these cards in open frame rigs because these cards - unlike its predecessors - have double ball bearing fans so dust is not as much of an issue. If you dedust them frequently of course with an air compressor. I have Gigabyte GTX 1070s with already replaced fans because they're so poor quality even low quantites of dust kills thems, meanwhile I still have 970s of the same design with more or less working fans.

[QuintLeo]

these cards - unlike its predecessors - have double ball bearing fans

 Odd, I've never seen a Gigabyte card that didn't use a dual ball-bearing fan, though I concede I've only owned a few of their models.

 My Gigabyte 1070s ARE dual ball-bearing - both the full-length 2-fan cards and the single-fan "ITX" models.

[bathrobehero]

these cards - unlike its predecessors - have double ball bearing fans

 Odd, I've never seen a Gigabyte card that didn't use a dual ball-bearing fan, though I concede I've only owned a few of their models.

 My Gigabyte 1070s ARE dual ball-bearing - both the full-length 2-fan cards and the single-fan "ITX" models.

Gigabyte GTX 1070 G1 Gaming (GV-N1070G1 GAMING-8GD)
Gigabyte GTX 970 OC (GV-N970WF3OC-4GD)
Gigabyte GTX 970 mini (GV-N970IXOC-4GD)
Gigabyte GTX 750 Ti Windforce OC (GV-N75TOC-2GI)
Gigabyte GTX 780 Ti (GV-N78TOC-3GD)

These are the cards I had and ALL have crappy sleeve bearings. And they got progressively worse (except for the 780 Ti) with each iteration until AORUS came along with its superb fan design.

You can tell if a GPU has crappy sleeve bearing fans by: just touching/moving them and they feel like a plastic toy from a Kinder Surprise, seeing the product pages (ball bearings are always a heavily advertised feature) or by just watching them spin slower and slower after months.

Edit:
GeForce® GTX 1070 Xtreme Gaming 8G (rev. 1.0) - GV-N1070XTREME-8GD
GeForce® GTX 1070 Xtreme Gaming 8G (rev. 2.0) - GV-N1070XTREME-8GD
AORUS GeForce® GTX 1070 8G - GV-N1070AORUS-8GD

Only these 3-fan Gigabyte 1070s have double ball bearing, every other one has sleeve bearing.

[BLife]

*snip*
In a typical gaming computer with one card there's plenty of space to pull air from.

*snip*
I have a couple of these cards in an open rig with about 6-8cm in beween them and they're the coolest.

*snip*

Thank you very much for your insight. I really appreciate that    After reading the above I tried to see if giving more space will run them cool, but unfortunately in my case they didn't cool down much   Here is what I did.

GPU1 <--15cm Gap-->GPU2 <--15CM Gap--> GPU3 <--15CM Gap--> GPU4

And set the fan speed to 70% and and the room temperature is about 30C and the GPU temperature are as follows

GPU1    72
GPU2    74
GPU3    73
GPU4    74

But when I place a external fan in-between the gpus like below the they cool down a lot.

GPU1 <--15cm Gap-->60CFM Fan<--3CMGap-->GPU2 <--15cm Gap-->60CFM Fan<--3CMGap-->GPU3 <--15cm Gap-->60CFM Fan<--3CMGap-->GPU4

GPU1    63 Fan Speed 60%
GPU2    65 Fan Speed 60%
GPU3    63 Fan Speed 60%
GPU4    63 Fan Speed 60%

This external fan runs on 12v and has an rpm of 1300 moving about 60CFM, and I wanted to test a theory that, the GPU fans are very good in moving the heat away from the GPU chip but don't have enough force to push the heat away from the gpu unit itself.

So I changed the power to the external fans from 12v to 5v and the RPM fell a lot(I don't have exact count to be honest) and I am sure they are not pushing 60CFM now. And now the same setup as above produced different results

GPU1    67 Fan Speed 60%
GPU2    69 Fan Speed 60%
GPU3    68 Fan Speed 60%
GPU4    67 Fan Speed 60%

So I am of the option that the GPU fan are good in moving the heat away from the chip but they don't have enough muscle to push the heat away from the unit itself. So an external force pushing air in its direction helps a lot.

If my conclusion is wrong then I am sorry about it, I don't have a thermographic camera  at hand, so its all just hot air stuff 

The external fan used is 120mm DeepCool XFan 120L/B Case fan.

Regarding enclosing these beasts I afraid customs cases is the way forward

I have ordered Silverstone Tek 140mm FHP-141 case fan and once that reaches I will try out a custom case setup of this beast and will post back results.

In the mean time if anyone have any ideas please share it here.

Regards,
BLife

[bathrobehero]

Thank you very much for your insight. I really appreciate that   

Likewise. I don't have any cases yet only open rigs so I'm just writing what I've read and what I assume and your tests are informative.

Can't wait for my cases to arrive so that I can also experiment!

[philipma1957]

it sucks in a case,  dont run it in a case

unless the case has a big fan  on the side

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119225&cm_re=case-_-11-119-225-_-Product


I would get this case

pop the window

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147232

mount this on the side as an exhaust fan

http://www.ebay.com/itm/14-inch-Universal-Slim-Fan-Push-Pull-Electric-Radiator-Cooling-12V-Mount-Kit-/281835227043?

might be over kill  but it would work

a 12
http://www.ebay.com/itm/12-inch-Universal-Slim-Fan-Push-Pull-Electric-Radiator-Cooling-12V-w-Mount-Kit-/391540191060?


a 10  this is an 80 watt 1570 cfm this should do the trick
http://www.ebay.com/itm/10-inch-UNIVERSAL-SLIM-FAN-PUSH-PULL-ELECTRIC-RADIATOR-COOLING-12V-80w-1570-CFM-/261710248067?

[BLife]

it sucks in a case,  dont run it in a case

unless the case has a big fan  on the side

Thanks for the tip and links philip, that was really useful.  To be honest with you this entire hunt for best airflow design came about when I realized that this beast will suck when enclosed in a typical case. I also believe no case exist that might hold 6 of these comfortably with enough spacing to help with airflow.

And so I wanted to build a custom case with these beasts in mind and wanted to identify the best possible placement of fans to help with heat dissipation.

Regarding the radiator fans, are they good enough to run 24/7? To be honest, I never had experience with them so I don't have much info on them.

Added Later:
I found this link about fans life time, hope this helps

http://www.titan-cd.com/en/faq/What-characteristics-determine-the-lifetime-of-a-fan/Cooling-fan-lifetime.html

Regards,
BLife

[philipma1957]

it sucks in a case,  dont run it in a case

unless the case has a big fan  on the side

Thanks for the tip and links philip, that was really useful.  To be honest with you this entire hunt for best airflow design came about when I realized that this beast will suck when enclosed in a typical case. I also believe no case exist that might hold 6 of these comfortably with enough spacing to help with airflow.

And so I wanted to build a custom case with these beasts in mind and wanted to identify the best possible placement of fans to help with heat dissipation.

Regarding the radiator fans, are they good enough to run 24/7? To be honest, I never had experience with them so I don't have much info on them.

Added Later:
I found this link about fans life time, hope this helps

http://www.titan-cd.com/en/faq/What-characteristics-determine-the-lifetime-of-a-fan/Cooling-fan-lifetime.html

Regards,
BLife

well the 10 inch  will use 80 watts  which means a splice into  a molex  and the molex allows 3 power choices been a while since I did that  but I think  the correct wiring to a molex will yield 9 volts   which  should still let that fan pull tons of air.

I think I will take this one on and try to build one.  I have cards I have mobos I have the case.  so why not

[BLife]

well the 10 inch  will use 80 watts  which means a splice into  a molex  and the molex allows 3 power choices been a while since I did that  but I think  the correct wiring to a molex will yield 9 volts   which  should still let that fan pull tons of air.

I think I will take this one on and try to build one.  I have cards I have mobos I have the case.  so why not

Thanks for the update philip, about the setup. here is what I was thinking, which in my opinion will make enable efficient airflow.

http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/zz305/BLife12/2%20PSU%20Controller/Setup_zpsmc7xlc8f.png

Here the fan is mounted to the top with the case having a vertical limit of about 9". And the GPU's are mounted at an angle of about 70 degree that makes them blocking the channel and any air flow has to wash over then, that will in my opinion will help in reducing the heat a lot. Each channel can be about 12CM wide which will give ample space to mount the gpu at that angle.

So the breth of the case will be about 6*12 + 5CM margin = 77cm. This is a big but I hope this will help.

Any ideas and criticism is welcomed. If anyone else have any ides a please post them here.

Regards,
BLife

[vapourminer]

[...] a molex  and the molex allows 3 power choices been a while since I did that  but I think  the correct wiring to a molex will yield 9 volts   which  should still let that fan pull tons of air.

by splicing into a molex you can do 12v, 5v, and 7v. the 7v is by splicing into the 12 and 5v lines (12-5=7).

[QuintLeo]

I found this link about fans life time, hope this helps

http://www.titan-cd.com/en/faq/What-characteristics-determine-the-lifetime-of-a-fan/Cooling-fan-lifetime.html

 Z-axis is one of those "fancy" rifle-type sleeve bearing designs.
 Note the *recommended temperature range" on those.

 Many if not most GPUs see more than 40C at the intake (40C = 104F), which is why ball bearing is the way to go, they're INTENDED for use at higher temps.


 7V out of a molex as LOW currents is fine, just don't try to pull a LOT of current that way - couple amps per PS shouldn't be an issue though.


 I'm not sure if a single molex as used for PC drive/fan connections is specified to handle 80 watts at 12 VDC.
 I suspect it's probably OK though, that's less than 7 amps.