First off, these boards are FRIGGIN HUGE.
Not just in length, but the full-sized block-shaped plastic shroud hits connectors on my mainboard, forcing me to sacrifice the eSATA front-mounted socket and fiddle with the front USB sockets as well. Even so, the board is slightly squished in my chassis (P180 Mini; uATX), further reducing the already thin spacing between both cards.
The rear plate is also very convenient as a security measure, but it strangles the fan of the adjacent board nearly completely in a cramped system like I've got. This made me a bit suspicious, but I decided to have faith in AMDs product designers and engineers.
Before pulling the old boards I had uninstalled the graphics driver to clear the way so to speak. Upon starting the system and running the driver installer, I was greeted early on by a bluescreen. I felt like Keanu Reeves, doing his best 'whoah!' expression. I've not had a bluescreen while installing a driver in years and years. Literally, I''ve no memory of when it last happened.
Reboot, re-install... It worked, installer finished in record time, but literally NOTHING got installed. Reboot again, nope. Still standard VGA adapter, according to the device manager... I tried to uninstall the problem reporter - the only piece of software that "stuck" - and the installer hung and would not finish, or even exit when I tried to abort. Had to kill it off manually.
Next attempt with the installer, and it installed everything but the driver. The report just said "failed", without elaborating further in any way. Thanks! So after just spending SKR 6400 and only getting abuse for it in return I was getting a wee bit ticked off at this point...!
Another install - manually un-ticking everything I could except for the driver, and FINALLY... SUCCESS! Checked the CCC, crossfire was working, Aero Glass activated. Why all the initial fuss though, what gives?!
Then I started up Boinc, running the Milkyway plugin on both GPUs, aaannnnnnddd...UH-OH!
Let's cut things short and say I shut down the client when the CCC temperature indicator reached 97C and the fan was screaming like a god damn banshee, and no indication of the curve about to stabilize. Shutdown again, turned the chassis sideways and forced an internal USB front-panel cable inbetween the graphics cards to create some spacing and then re-started again. Now the temps "only" reached 93C at most, and the fan peaked at a "mere" 53% (which in real-world terms is almost hairdryer-loud, with a nasty high-pitch hiss to it) or so for relatively short periods.
AMD... EPIC FAIL!!!
Your cooler design fucking sucks. I was hoping it would not, but it does. I may be forced to take these cards back, because I can't live with a PC that is so loud and this hot-running. I want to be able to run compute software without my boards scorching themselves and getting annoyed by a fan that goes up and down in revs constantly, sometimes revving so much the noise borders on the obnoxious. My old 4890s never went above 88C or so, even in Milkyway, which is the hottest-running application I've got, and the fans stayed at a constant stable level. They were far from quiet that's for friggin' sure, but at least they didn't switch gears all the time.
I just don't understand why AMD didn't go with a thinner, but wider-diameter fan instead, Nvidia used an offset fan in the 8800GTX Ultra, that worked fine. There's also the taller-than-standard MSI Lightning series of cards, amongst others. People don't use horizontal desktop chassis anymore, a slightly taller board WILL fit any tower chassis in use today,maybe some cramped HTPC chassis can't handle them, but that's not a biggie, a 6970 is typically too loud and too power-hungry for the HTPC crowd anyway.
Tidbit: both caymans blasting away at Milkyway caused my PSU fan to spin up noticeably faster than I've ever felt before, even on hot days, and this winter day my room temp is a pretty comfy 22-23C (23 at eye height, but my floors are much colder due to unheated spaces right underneath my apartement, so the PC standing at waist height likely experiences a little less.)
So... I'm not terribly impressed with the physical properties of these boards. They're needlessly large (naked boards show a lot of dead PCB space), and the shrouds and backplate cut off a lot of airflow to the fans. Really nooby design I must say. It's less of a problem for people with big ATX chassis with multiple PCIe slots spaced far apart, but in my compact chassis these cards fry, particulary the top primary board. Even idle temps with clocks turned down to 250MHz (most of the time; the card gears back up to 880 periodically for no discernible reason despite no background apps and only 1 display attached) hovers around 48-53C, that's terrible.
So, if you're thinking of CFing 6970s and only have 2 PCIe 16x slots with a single extra slot between them - seriously consider buying Nvidia instead. I would, knowing what I do today.
Now I will try starting up some games and see if I can make this thing bluescreen again. LOL!
Not just in length, but the full-sized block-shaped plastic shroud hits connectors on my mainboard, forcing me to sacrifice the eSATA front-mounted socket and fiddle with the front USB sockets as well. Even so, the board is slightly squished in my chassis (P180 Mini; uATX), further reducing the already thin spacing between both cards.
The rear plate is also very convenient as a security measure, but it strangles the fan of the adjacent board nearly completely in a cramped system like I've got. This made me a bit suspicious, but I decided to have faith in AMDs product designers and engineers.
Before pulling the old boards I had uninstalled the graphics driver to clear the way so to speak. Upon starting the system and running the driver installer, I was greeted early on by a bluescreen. I felt like Keanu Reeves, doing his best 'whoah!' expression. I've not had a bluescreen while installing a driver in years and years. Literally, I''ve no memory of when it last happened.
Reboot, re-install... It worked, installer finished in record time, but literally NOTHING got installed. Reboot again, nope. Still standard VGA adapter, according to the device manager... I tried to uninstall the problem reporter - the only piece of software that "stuck" - and the installer hung and would not finish, or even exit when I tried to abort. Had to kill it off manually.
Next attempt with the installer, and it installed everything but the driver. The report just said "failed", without elaborating further in any way. Thanks! So after just spending SKR 6400 and only getting abuse for it in return I was getting a wee bit ticked off at this point...!
Another install - manually un-ticking everything I could except for the driver, and FINALLY... SUCCESS! Checked the CCC, crossfire was working, Aero Glass activated. Why all the initial fuss though, what gives?!
Then I started up Boinc, running the Milkyway plugin on both GPUs, aaannnnnnddd...UH-OH!
Let's cut things short and say I shut down the client when the CCC temperature indicator reached 97C and the fan was screaming like a god damn banshee, and no indication of the curve about to stabilize. Shutdown again, turned the chassis sideways and forced an internal USB front-panel cable inbetween the graphics cards to create some spacing and then re-started again. Now the temps "only" reached 93C at most, and the fan peaked at a "mere" 53% (which in real-world terms is almost hairdryer-loud, with a nasty high-pitch hiss to it) or so for relatively short periods.
AMD... EPIC FAIL!!!
Your cooler design fucking sucks. I was hoping it would not, but it does. I may be forced to take these cards back, because I can't live with a PC that is so loud and this hot-running. I want to be able to run compute software without my boards scorching themselves and getting annoyed by a fan that goes up and down in revs constantly, sometimes revving so much the noise borders on the obnoxious. My old 4890s never went above 88C or so, even in Milkyway, which is the hottest-running application I've got, and the fans stayed at a constant stable level. They were far from quiet that's for friggin' sure, but at least they didn't switch gears all the time.
I just don't understand why AMD didn't go with a thinner, but wider-diameter fan instead, Nvidia used an offset fan in the 8800GTX Ultra, that worked fine. There's also the taller-than-standard MSI Lightning series of cards, amongst others. People don't use horizontal desktop chassis anymore, a slightly taller board WILL fit any tower chassis in use today,maybe some cramped HTPC chassis can't handle them, but that's not a biggie, a 6970 is typically too loud and too power-hungry for the HTPC crowd anyway.
Tidbit: both caymans blasting away at Milkyway caused my PSU fan to spin up noticeably faster than I've ever felt before, even on hot days, and this winter day my room temp is a pretty comfy 22-23C (23 at eye height, but my floors are much colder due to unheated spaces right underneath my apartement, so the PC standing at waist height likely experiences a little less.)
So... I'm not terribly impressed with the physical properties of these boards. They're needlessly large (naked boards show a lot of dead PCB space), and the shrouds and backplate cut off a lot of airflow to the fans. Really nooby design I must say. It's less of a problem for people with big ATX chassis with multiple PCIe slots spaced far apart, but in my compact chassis these cards fry, particulary the top primary board. Even idle temps with clocks turned down to 250MHz (most of the time; the card gears back up to 880 periodically for no discernible reason despite no background apps and only 1 display attached) hovers around 48-53C, that's terrible.
So, if you're thinking of CFing 6970s and only have 2 PCIe 16x slots with a single extra slot between them - seriously consider buying Nvidia instead. I would, knowing what I do today.
Now I will try starting up some games and see if I can make this thing bluescreen again. LOL!
