Those four cards are the reference design and not excessively wide so they can breathe. Some of the cards with dual fans are thicker(especially if they add a backplate) so there might be less room to breathe. But the reference design does get the heat out of the case. I don't see a problem with the 970 but it might put you over budget. Or you can go crazy and look for a deal on a 295x2.

They also make short GTX 960s like the GIGABYTE GV-N960IXOC-2GD or the EVGA 02G-P4-2962-KR

Ok, thanks for the helpful post. I'm going to buy two of the ones you recommended and possible one of those short 960s. I forgot about those.

I'll post pics when its up and running.

Man, I take a day off and look at all the stuff I miss, lol.

My 2 cents. Since I have both cards, some with the ACX (2 fan design) and the single fan design in almost Identical cases, I've found that the single fan is actually quieter than the dual fan config.

Weird right?

But that is probably because I am putting them under extreme load.

Temp wise, yeah the 2 fans run cooler but half that heat gets sent back into the case so I had to modify the case with fans to remove that excess heat.

There is a noticeable noise difference between the 2.

But overall since both computers are running Maxwell GPU cards the temps are much better than the previous generation cards ( when I had the 780s in there, the temps would hit my default throttle temp and slow down) I've never come close yet to that temp with the Maxwells.

Good luck with your build

Zalster

Not really a crunching system's story, but I thought it was worth it to share anyway. It may pull someone else over the line to buy this cooler. :)

Last night I noticed while playing videos on my TV-server that things were slowing down a lot. So I checked the temperature of the CPU, it was pegged at a solid 105C and had been that for over an hour. We're still wondering how come the CPU survived that onslaught. :)

The CPU is an i3-530 on an Asrock H55DE3 motherboard, 8GB of DDR3, Windows 7 64bit. The CPU heat sink and fan on it were until that time the stock ones, which I had oiled with bicycle oil when it started making a racket around Christmas last year. It had now frozen completely solid, even I couldn't get it to turn when pushing by hand.

We use the system primarily to stream videos (films, series) from the NAS, and to watch videos through a browser at Rooster Teeth and Achievement Hunter.

So last evening I quickly went to the Alternate.nl site and got a new cooler and a new case. I had already been looking for a new cooler for the past weeks, so this was easy as I knew what I wanted: the Cooler Master Seidon 120V Rev. 2, which is a water cooling that comes factory filled with coolant. It also has one 120mm fan included.

Because my old case was a tad old (and dusty!), and couldn't fit a 120mm fan on the backplate, I also bought a new case, an Aerocool GT Advance White Edition, which comes with 2x 120mm fans built in.

Cooling was just €46,99, the case was €34,99, so together not even 100 euros.
Because I ordered things before 10pm, they managed to send them out last night and I got them today.

So this evening I pulled apart the old TV-server, one on one changed over the small connectors on the motherboard, added the backplate for the cooling (one side for AMD CPUs, the other for Intel CPUs), put the motherboard in the new case, changed over HDD and DVD to the new case, same with the PSU and the HD6850 and connected everything again. Last I put in the water cooler. Closed the case and connected it back to the TV.

Started up first time around, but damn what a loud fans... that was something in the BIOS though, apparently the CMOS battery is dead so it had forgotten all BIOS settings. Oh well, set that all to their correct settings including that the CPU fan didn't need to be Full ON (the case fan is on the CPU fan output, so it was full on) and saved. Immediately all racket went down. In Windows I told Speedfan additionally to only run fans at 50%. So now you hear neither of the fans, only the hard drive humming.

Ran videos for over two hours, max temperature we've seen is 35C, it idles at 15C. With the CPU heat sink and fan this was idling at 35C, normal operating 55-60C. So we're extremely happy. Although there's a little nag: I didn't check these before buying, but both the fan on the water cooler, as well the case fan on the front has a blue LED which can be bright. Nothing said about the case though: there are 4 big blue LEDs on the front of the case. If they start to get annoying I promise to disconnect the molex that feeds them. :)

As for the cooler, I may buy another one, this time for my i5-2500K. Its Hyper212 Evo has a fan that's slowly becoming quite loud as well, and while I could probably just exchange the fan for the 120mm fan I have left over from the TV-server case, I'd like to try what this kind of water cooler does with an i5 as well.

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I have this one coming tomorrow.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00V4HY522/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Nice looking card, is there a benefit to having 4gigs vs 2gigs for Seti WUs?

I also like this card that was recommended by woohoo.


Is this MSI card louder then the ASUS STRIX and the MSI GTX 960 GAMING 4G?
I see the benefits of the blower style fan, and wondered if the other two cards suggested would generate less noise with acceptable temps?

I mostly got the 4GB card as I also game on this computer and Skyrim was getting cramped in 2GB.

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A quick note-
Observe the spec on the fans with all these vendors.

I will vouch that EVGA uses Ball Bearings(double in fact) not Sleeve Bearings -
These are quiet as a church mouse. Only noise I've heard from my GTX 960 SC (single fan version) was when I turned up fan to 70% for a minute- and that was just air.

I've had good luck(and effective cooling to <60C-my target) with a 30% manual setting.
This holds up under high clocks 540 base and 3505 mem - yielding 1404MHz base and 1752MHz mem clocks as reported by GPU Z with 4x CUDAs running

40% will give 1520 rpms and 53C

Ambient room temp and air circulation there and in your Case, guide these adjustments

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A quick note-
Observe the spec on the fans with all these vendors.

I will vouch that EVGA uses Ball Bearings(double in fact) not Sleeve Bearings -
These are quiet as a church mouse. Only noise I've heard from my GTX 960 SC (single fan version) was when I turned up fan to 70% for a minute- and that was just air.

I've had good luck(and effective cooling to <60C-my target) with a 30% manual setting.
This holds up under high clocks 540 base and 3505 mem - yielding 1404MHz base and 1752MHz mem clocks as reported by GPU Z with 4x CUDAs running

40% will give 1520 rpms and 53C

Ambient room temp and air circulation there and in your Case, guide these adjustments

I am crunching 3 WU's and my temps are sticking around 48C on the 960 while the 760 is up around 70C.

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An updated picture of my second machine. These MSI's run warm, appx. 60C at 80% fan speed working two units at a time. I am going to leave off the third card and save that money towards a third rig. I've noticed my 750TIs run pretty well compared to the 960s, I was hoping to see a slighty higher performance margin between the two cards. Anyone have experience running each type of these cards?

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Give Luatics a try, it helped my 750Ti a little. And if CPU supports AVX, it help a fair bit.

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An updated picture of my second machine. These MSI's run warm, appx. 60C at 80% fan speed working two units at a time. I am going to leave off the third card and save that money towards a third rig. I've noticed my 750TIs run pretty well compared to the 960s, I was hoping to see a slighty higher performance margin between the two cards. Anyone have experience running each type of these cards?

The Twin Frozr version runs cool.

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The Twin Frozr version runs cool.

Most likely, This system will be going downstairs in the basement where its cooler. I'll keep these running full speed and not worry about the temps or noise. In a year or so I'll upgrade the cards in this machine. I have some parts ready for a third build. Is hyper threading useful for running WUs/GPU-WUs? I may pick up an I7. This machine will sport a pair of 970s.

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The Twin Frozr version runs cool.

Most likely, This system will be going downstairs in the basement where its cooler. I'll keep these running full speed and not worry about the temps or noise. In a year or so I'll upgrade the cards in this machine. I have some parts ready for a third build. Is hyper threading useful for running WUs/GPU-WUs? I may pick up an I7. This machine will sport a pair of 970s.

I water cool My video cards and cpus, closed loop cooling does work, but there are limits with some video card setups, but then ymmv.

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Savoir-Faire is everywhere!
The T1 Trust, T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, America's First HST

Give Luatics a try, it helped my 750Ti a little. And if CPU supports AVX, it help a fair bit.

I downloaded and installed it on my systems. I have question, I had an app_config.xml file already, does it override Lunatics app_info.xml file but still use the lunatics modules? I couldn't find much info on it. Also I read that I have to watch for Seti updates because with Lunatics installed it will not automatically update. Is this a big deal?

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The app_config works alongside with the app_info. The default Lunatics <count> for instance is 1 but a gpu usage statement in app_config overrides the default usage in app_info. The stock apps mostly are the Lunatics Optimized apps. You won't get any updates from the project directly after switching to the anonymous platform. Watch for the Lunatics 0.43 installer in the coming year for newer apps the developers are working on. They premier the apps over in Beta and when they are ready for PrimeTime, debut them here in the main project. To answer your question, no, not a big deal. There is a newer AP GPU app though that isn't in the standard Lunatics installer. There are some caveats with deployment though with regard to drivers.

Happy Crunching with the Optimized platform apps.

Keith

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

Watch for the Lunatics 0.43 installer in the coming year for newer apps the developers are working on.

v0.43a has been the current installer since November last year - that's the one to use now, and watch out for future revisions as Keith says. If the basic SETI search algorithm remains unchanged at v7/v7, we won't bother to rush out installers for every minor tweak, only if major steps are made in the optimisation by our volunteer developers. If the SETI project changes the underlying search version, we aim to match it with a revised installer as quickly as possible - but there's usually plenty of lead-time via the Beta testing.

Moved the twin 960 machine to the basement. GPU temps are in the 40s, and 30s for the cpu. The humidity is around 75%, I'm thinking it should be ok with the machine running 24/7.

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My work in progress. Corsair 540, SSD, and PSU. I'm planning for a dual GPU machine with an I7-4790K or an I5-4690K. Is the I7 worth the extra hundred if I'm planning to run two 980tis? The power supply may change, I have a feeling the 850 may not be enough. This will only be used as a Seti work horse.

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looks like a toss up between the i5 and i7
running four wu on an i5 i get 28% cpu utiliation
running twelve wu on an i7 i get 31% cpu utilization

i think that psu is fine, i don't pull more than 530w from the wall with two gpus

My work in progress. Corsair 540, SSD, and PSU. I'm planning for a dual GPU machine with an I7-4790K or an I5-4690K. Is the I7 worth the extra hundred if I'm planning to run two 980tis? The power supply may change, I have a feeling the 850 may not be enough. This will only be used as a Seti work horse.

Nice,

I agree, I think the 850 should be fine for the 2 cards. If you ever go with more cards then you might need a bigger PSU. Nice thing about the Maxwell chips, they use a lot less power than the previous generation.

Good luck with the build

Zalster

That Corsair cube is too small for an EATX motherboard, like My Asus Rampage IV Extreme eatx motherboard, so My next case will be a Thermaltake Core X9 case in Black(they do come in White, for those who like Snow jobs. ;) ) I will put in an SSD in every case, no more hdd's for Me.


All 3 are stackable, though the X1 is ITX and the X2 is MATX, only the X9 is for ATX and EATX.

A White X9:

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Savoir-Faire is everywhere!
The T1 Trust, T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, America's First HST

I debated buying that case and the HAF XB EVO, but I kept coming back to the Corsair. I wanted to use a standard ATX board with mostly air cooling, may get two of the hybrid 980tis. I like the mother board chamber on the corsair and Zalster told me that a good setup for that case is to lay it on its side on a metal rack so the board is horizontal.

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Should be fine as long as you can mount the radiators.