Do dual slot cards have cooling issues?

[bentomo]

I've been doing a lot of deciding on parts for a computer build I plan to do, going good so far, but I was wondering about dual slot cards. I'm probably going to get a 5830 and eventually going to get a second one, however, the way the motherboard is setup the pci express slots are only one slot apart, meaning dual slot cards would almost be touching, meaning no room for air intake.

Do dual slot cards have issues cooling when they're set up like this, I've seen people setup like this before, but it seems like the fan would be loud and very ineffective with such little space between the cards.

 

[bentomo]

Bottom of page bump, I thought this would be a simple answer.

 

[VINMAN46]

Go for a 460 over the 5830
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-460-gf104-fermi,2684.html

 

[bentomo]

Hmmm, I suppose I could just look at nvidia chipsets, however, I have one other question.


What chipset should I get the will be compatible with the bulldozer processor coming out.

(with the bios update of course)

Either way my original question still stands, don't dual slot cards have issues with cooling where the pci express slots are only a slot apart.

 

[Indigo]

Your other thread has the questions you asked about Bulldozer/Fusion in them. I'd suggest checking that one for your answers.

To answer your question here however, dual slot video cards don't have problems with cooling as long as you maintain adequate case airflow. I had two GeForce 8800 GTS 512's in SLI a while back and while there wasn't much room for the top card's fan to pull air in, it still did a fine job at keeping the card cool. My 5870 doesn't have the same design as the 8800's did, but if I put another one in my case, I'd still have plenty of room for the fan to pull air. These fans are high performance, and they differ just a bit when it comes to pulling air flow over traditional bladed fans. If you find that it isn't working out, consider going with an X2 GPU, one that has two GPUs on it instead of doing SLI/CrossFire. Sometimes that will net the same performance boost you're looking for, while cutting down on case clutter / air flow issues.