Twin Frozr II Cooler good idea for TRI-SLI??

[sexsymbol]

Looking to buy three MSI Twin Frozr II GTX 580 to set them up in TRI-SLI.

Is it a good idea or should I look for reference coolers??

Have read some bad experiences with this cooler and SLI setups, very high temps.

My specs:

- AX1200
- Lian Li PC-80
- X58 UD7

Thanks!!

[[XC] Synthetickiller]

What case will this be in?

[sexsymbol]

Thanks for the answer.

Lian Li Pc-80 with three front fans 14x14cm.

[[XC] Synthetickiller]

If you're feeding the cards cool air, you should be fine IMO.

If you don't have a window, I'd consider picking up a PCI fan attachment, like this:


That'll force MORE than enough air to keep the cards cool. 120mm is dea, Perhaps two since you have 3 cards?

[sexsymbol]

Very clean cable setup in my case, so good airflow inside my case.

Lets go ahead with the three of them.

Thanks for the answer, let you know once they arrive.

[ScottALot]

Mount a 120mm fan on top of the cards?

[Ket]

Ditto, if you have a side fan blowing air in, you should be fine. I'd redo the TIM job on the cards when you get them though as that will drop temps around 3c as MSI always slap way too much TIM on.

[sexsymbol]

Cards already installed.

Without the fan on top, the upper card gets up to 98ºC. Now going to try with the fan on top.

As I said before the airflow inside my case is really good, so clearly this type of cooler is not a good idea for SLI or TRI SLI.

[Chickenman]

Cards already installed.

Without the fan on top, the upper card gets up to 98ºC. Now going to try with the fan on top.

As I said before the airflow inside my case is really good, so clearly this type of cooler is not a good idea for SLI or TRI SLI.

It is possibly really bad, hence the temps.


Just having lots of fans does not mean you have great airflow, all your fans blowing in from the front are creating turbulence and crossflows that are probably starving some parts of the case any real airflow at all.

In saying all of that - I agree with your conclusion - those cards were always going to be hot if too close together.

[sexsymbol]

My case is Lian Li PC-80 with the default fans (three 140mm front and one 140mm in the upper part of the case) plus a Noctua 120mm at the back of the case. Just changed the psu by a Corsair AX1200 and the cpu cooler is the stock cooler of the i7 980X. All the cables are away from the air flow. Same setup with 570's and reference cooler getting great temps.

I'm pretty confident of having a good air flow inside my case. This kind of cooler is great for single card, but for SLI is a no go.

More info once I install the on top fan.

[Onoff312]

My case is Lian Li PC-80 with the default fans (three 140mm front and one 140mm in the upper part of the case) plus a Noctua 120mm at the back of the case. Just changed the psu by a Corsair AX1200 and the cpu cooler is the stock cooler of the i7 980X. All the cables are away from the air flow. Same setup with 570's and reference cooler getting great temps.

I'm pretty confident of having a good air flow inside my case. This kind of cooler is great for single card, but for SLI is a no go.

More info once I install the on top fan.

Yeah with reference coolers which are designed for sli most open coolers battle in more than a single card setup

[sexsymbol]

Results with fan on top: 93ºC upper card. No big difference.

Using Dual SLI and leaving one PCI-E space between the two cards:

- Upper: 82ºC
- Lower: 73ºC

Basically no option of TRI SLI for me.

Will have to stay with dual sli or look for reference cards.

Thanks everyone for the help!

[Mungri]

Ditto, if you have a side fan blowing air in, you should be fine. I'd redo the TIM job on the cards when you get them though as that will drop temps around 3c as MSI always slap way too much TIM on.

+1 for this. Worked wonders on both my MSI 460s and 560s.

MSI cards probably have 5x the amount of required paste on them. I replaced mine with two strips of MX3 1/3 of the way from the top and bottom.

The temperatures decreased significantly.

[sexsymbol]

I'll try to fix the TIM job, but this cooler needs space to work properly.

[CedricFP]

Doesn't the twin frozr II exhaust hot air back into the case? Could be a contributing factor.

[sexsymbol]

I'll say 25% out of the case 75% keeps inside the case.

When you set them up in SLI so close together they heat each other.

Today playing RIFT after an hour the upper card rise up to 94ºC, with only two cards in SLI leaving one PCI-E space between them.

Tim might help, but this cooler is for single use.

Opened a ticket at MSI and first answer was to lower core and mem clock.

[CedricFP]

Well if that much air is exhausted back into the case, then I'd say one problem is that your cards are sucking in heated air.

[sexsymbol]

Yeap, basically all the components are sucking hot air. The back fan, the psu fan and the upper fan are spitting fire!! The case feels like an oven. Going to try with a reference card cooler and the two twin frzr.

[WintersSC]

I do have a tri sli with 3 reference GTX570 cards, Imo is not a good idea to go for a sli or tri sli with non-reference fans. Though, I have 2 3000rpm fans shooting cold at them with my Antec 1200 front panel fans.

[sexsymbol]

Before changing to 580's I had that configuration with great temps. For SLI configs reference is the way to go.

Last answer from MSI was to RMA the cards. The cards are in great shape, the problem is the cooler.

[WintersSC]

Dont think is the fan's fault, Ive seen this problem in many forums, either with gigabyte cards, msi or whatever. The ones who seem to be doing well are the Asus DCuII but the problem is that they need 3 slots, and not many boards can handle that configurations, well, if you are going to tri sli, you will be able though xD. You have a high end board with nf200, dont you?

[sexsymbol]

Finally recieved the UD9. A photo of the setup: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/197/lafotozo.jpg/

The upper card (Zotac) gets up to 100ºC. That card is sucking all the hot air coming from the MSI below. As said many times before Twin Frozr is a great cooler for single use or SLI with space between the two cards.

So either I get 3 reference cards or liquid cooling.

BTW the QUAD SLI bridge seems not to work in TRI SLI. Only two cards working on SLI.