Just booted up with 2x5970s for the first time...

[st4rdust]

I finally got my 950w Silencer in the mail last night, though I didn't have time to really put everything together until I got home from work an hour ago. All I can say is that watching my mining client start up with four GPUs in the 370Mh/s range (I'll get around to reasonably overclocking these once I verify the system's stability) is pretty exhilarating for my inner geek, although when I start up each GPU the lights in my house flicker for a second  . Cheers to my fellow miners!

Anybody else take advantage of the $400 5970 sale from Newegg?

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[jjiimm_64]

yes,  I have 4 of these rigs with 4 cards each.... they dont clock well over 820, but they run much cooler then I anticipated.

2900Mh pulling 1200 watts at the wall.

[st4rdust]

Awesome, ill be able to tell you what I pull from the wall once my kill-a-watt arrives tomorrow, but as far as the 5970s, I've actually got my bottom card up to 930mhz @ 1.125v, right around 80C, and that's even on the warm side for my cards but I turn down the fans before I go to sleep. They're definitely vacuum cleaners at full blast, but I don't mind that as much when they do as well as they do cooling the GPUs. Top card is 830mhz @ 1.075v, which i also use as my desktop.

I've been working on different ways to cool these cards on air alone, though I may try liquid cooling in the future, particularly the issue of heat transfer from bottom card to top. With the stock cooler pulling air from the front of the case and pushing it out the back exhaust opening, I have a pretty simple setup consisting of two 120mm high-CFM fans, one pulling in air at the very front of the case, and the other positioned right infront of the cards pushing as much air into them at a high CFM as possible. Basically, pushing a bunch of extra air in the same airflow as the 5970 stock heatsink fan. I plan on trying some different configurations tomorrow, with fans all along the length of the cards to determine which cools more effectively: all of these fans blowing onto the cards, or all of them pulling air from the cards and out the side of the case.

The 5970s definitely have some overclock potential, and even maxed out cards can benefit from significantly lower temps with the right airflow. Ill post my results tomorrow. Id like to hear what any other owners are doing to cool their 5970s.

[jjiimm_64]

just a comment about pulling air out the side of the case, these cards blow ALL the air out the business end of the card quite wall, you may be fitting it.


business end:   I never know what to call the part of the card you plug the monitor into.  back? front? 

[DeathAndTaxes]

I've been working on different ways to cool these cards on air alone, though I may try liquid cooling in the future, particularly the issue of heat transfer from bottom card to top.

You might be on to something.   

http://img846.imageshack.us/img846/5624/p1040777.jpg

I didn't make it an inline photo because it is kinda big.  My GPU temps tend to be ~45C at 100% load overclocked to 920.

I want to try 4x but I need to find a MB which has this slot configuration

16x
something
16x
something
16x
something
16x

There are some AMD board with that layout but I haven't seen an Intel ones (at least not ones that cost less than $300). I also need a different case (one which has 8 expansion slots to fit the 2nd half of bottom card).

Please excuse the crappy wiring job.  Still haven't got around to wiring it all nice (power button not even hooked up yet).  I might write up a "guide" about what I learned setting this up.

Just got that power supply.  Enermax MAXREVO.  A 1350W super efficient beast!

If you want the cheapest possible rig price nothing beats air cooling but if you want density, a case you can actually close, and nearly silent operation well the only option is water cooling.