Personal computing discussed
Moderators: renee, mac_h8r1, Nemesis
vargis14 wrote:I love the loyalty to AMD. I truly hope your nice pile driver build is not too much CPU limited running Tri Fire. That is the one thing I am worried about for you.
Besides that you have a nice build...I wish you the best of luck with it.
Flying Fox wrote:Looks good! You mentioned all that work done to cards 2 and 3. Any closeup on that for others as a reference?
vargis14 wrote:Note: If your GPU temps are high " not much room between them" and your side panel fan is set to intake after testing, retest with the side panel fan set to exhaust.
vargis14 wrote:On the other hand maybe they will have a kid or 2. Maybe more if you have 1 male and 2 female cards to propagate the species. Put your male card in the middle for best results.
Prestige Worldwide wrote:3 280x in a 2H 2014 build.
Interesting choice....
Captain Ned wrote:Where's your frame time plots? It'd be nice to see if 3 cards can keep consistent per-frame times.
liquid_mage wrote:I think your last benchmark answers my question. But what display setup are you using? 3 x 1920x1080?
geekl33tgamer wrote:Prestige Worldwide wrote:3 280x in a 2H 2014 build.
Interesting choice....
Means I don't need heating in my room over winter.
But thanks for the comments all - Not had much time to test gaming performance as much as I would like, but anyone want to hazard a guess at what's going on with these?
To set a few things first - No components are overclocked for these. The AMD drivers are the 14.4 release. Operating system is Windows 8.1 with all applicable updates. Other than system services, the only programs running were Steam and Origin. AMD Raptr was used to track FPS. Afterburner was tracking temperatures, but I felt including them was pointless. All cards under load hovered between 87-92C solidly and didn't budge. That's hot folks, but no throttling in sight.
*benches*
In a real world game, it's plenty fast with 2 cards. The Firestrike 2 test seems troublesome for whatever reason across all resolutions, and it runs even slower using 3 cars! I'll get some more tests done on BF4 when I get a moment. This lot took me almost 2 hours!
geekl33tgamer wrote:Well said Chripsy. I'm happy with how it performs, despite the heat it chucks out - My case is venting it ok and nothing is being clock throttled so it's not bothering me.
I begin my overclocking adventure this morning tho, and have not got very far. My 8350 either isn't a very good overclocking sample, or the board isn't keeping the power supply up to what's needed. I also think I hit a thermal limit past about 4.5Ghz and 60C, cores were shutting down in Prime95.
It's stock speed is 4.0Ghz, and the board chose voltage of 1.325 to be appropriate from day 1. I'm working up from there, and started straight in at it's turbo core speed on all 8 (temps are loaded values when Prime95 is running Blend mode):
4.20Ghz | 1.325v | 34C - Pass
4.25Ghz | 1.325v | 35C - Pass
4.30Ghz | 1.325v | 38C - Pass
4.35Ghz | 1.325v | 42C - Pass
4.40Ghz | 1.325v | 47C - Pass
4.45Ghz | 1.325v | 53C - Failed (Random errors on several cores)
4.45Ghz | 1.375v | 57C - Pass
4.50Ghz | 1.375v | 58C - Pass
4.55Ghz | 1.375v | 59C - Failed (Random errors on several cores)
4.55Ghz | 1.405v | 64C - Failed (Cores shut down to idle)
4.55Ghz | 1.455v | 69C - Failed (Wouldn't POST)
Because of temps, I've stuck with 4.4Ghz at stock voltages for now. The additional 100Mhz isn't worth the significant temp increase that come with it.
Edit: The graphics card will NOT be overclocked. They already run too close to thermal limits if anyone was expecting to see that.
vargis14 wrote:As for your CPU temps I am surprised you went with a top down cooler instead of a single wide or twin tower cooler that gives you so much more fin area with the same amont of heatpipes to pull heat off your CPU and aim it directly out the rear exhaust fan.
But your temps look fine..now test it with a full GPU load and CPU load. Furmark and say prime95 just make sure your PSU+ heat sink can handle a full overload since using furmark and prime loads the system to the max. A good bit more then just gaming a heavy CPU game. It really is not a realistic load but it will tell you if your wattage is good enough on your PSU.
Sorry I forgot how many watts and make you PSU is and if is has a single 12v rail or multiple 12v rails. With the GPUs using around 200+ watts each and a CPU that uses around 150 loaded.
A good way to lower your GPU wattage use is to enable v-sync since you have 60htz monitors there is no reason to make the GPU's produce frame that never even get used and just get flushed down out of the buffer.
On my SLI 770 rig enabling vsync on most everything reduces power draw and GPU temps dramatically.
vargis14 wrote:As for your CPU temps I am surprised you went with a top down cooler instead of a single wide or twin tower cooler that gives you so much more fin area with the same amont of heatpipes to pull heat off your CPU and aim it directly out the rear exhaust fan.
vargis14 wrote:Sorry I forgot how many watts and make you PSU is and if is has a single 12v rail or multiple 12v rails. With the GPUs using around 200+ watts each and a CPU that uses around 150 loaded.
vargis14 wrote:A good way to lower your GPU wattage use is to enable v-sync since you have 60htz monitors there is no reason to make the GPU's produce frame that never even get used and just get flushed down out of the buffer.
geekl33tgamer wrote:JBI, I assume 60C is the chips cut-off point? It was fine up to that then went off a cliff, lol.
geekl33tgamer wrote:4.40Ghz | 1.325v | 47C - Pass
4.45Ghz | 1.325v | 53C - Failed (Random errors on several cores)
4.45Ghz | 1.375v | 57C - Pass
4.50Ghz | 1.375v | 58C - Pass
4.55Ghz | 1.375v | 59C - Failed (Random errors on several cores)