Time for new computer: Graphic card

[sinij]

Things got quite a bit more complicated since I put together my last computer, especially in a graphic card department. Dual cards seem to get more of a norm and there are two standards – SLI and Crossfire.

My computer is also my home entertainment center - it is hooked up to my sound system for music, projector for movie watching and last but not least gaming.

My goal for GPU is: a) it should last for at least 2 years of gaming without updates b) work with my projector for watching movies c) be easy to update in a year to bring system to top notch without buying top-of-the-line card

So far my top runner is BFG’s GeForce 7900 GTX

On

Asus® M2N-SLi Deluxe, Socket AM2, NVIDIA® nForce® 570 SLi MCP Chipset w/ PCI Express x16 (ATX)

My concerns are – will I get better performance out of 2 ‘economy’ cards? What is whole deal about 800Watt power supplies; do I really need anything more than 400W to drive 2GPUs, CPU, 2 raid SATA HDs and CD/DVD burner and DVD reader?

Any suggestions, ideas, opinions?

[Fabricated]

If you can afford it I would just recommend getting the 7900GTX as opposed to two economy cards. Yeah the SLI'd cards may outperform the single one a bit, but then you're officially done upgrading unless you feel like throwing out two cards. That, and slightly better performance may not be worth whatever technical and driver issues remain with SLI. The bugfix list for SLI in each of NVidia's recent driver updates is a mile long.

Also, a 500W PSU is way more than enough to handle a good processor, lots of RAM, 2-3 hard drives, 2 optical drives, and 2 cards.

Try this: http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp

[Engels]

Things got quite a bit more complicated since I put together my last computer, especially in a graphic card department. Dual cards seem to get more of a norm and there are two standards – SLI and Crossfire.

My computer is also my home entertainment center - it is hooked up to my sound system for music, projector for movie watching and last but not least gaming.

My goal for GPU is: a) it should last for at least 2 years of gaming without updates b) work with my projector for watching movies c) be easy to update in a year to bring system to top notch without buying top-of-the-line card

So far my top runner is BFG’s GeForce 7900 GTX

On

Asus® M2N-SLi Deluxe, Socket AM2, NVIDIA® nForce® 570 SLi MCP Chipset w/ PCI Express x16 (ATX)

My concerns are – will I get better performance out of 2 ‘economy’ cards? What is whole deal about 800Watt power supplies; do I really need anything more than 400W to drive 2GPUs, CPU, 2 raid SATA HDs and CD/DVD burner and DVD reader?

Any suggestions, ideas, opinions?

Doesn't look like money's too big a concern, but there's a good chance that your CPU isn't so outdated that you have to upgrade it as well. Looking at the motherboard, chances are your current CPU won't work with it, since its a newer AM2 type. If you have an AMD cpu already, its probably a socket 939 cpu. You can probably get a similar, if not identical motherboard board for AMD 939 chips. Just a thought.

Oh, and depending on other periferals, like fans, additional USB ports, wether your 'cd' kit is dvd-rw or dvd/cd rw etc, the power needs creep up. I have lots of ram, a good processor, 2 drives, 1 optical drive and one card, and that very site mentioned below asks for 400 watts for my rig.

[Fabricated]

Also note that the power requirements that website gives you are based on load and peak power consumption unless you set it otherwise. If at default settings your rig asks for 400 watts, it means that at absolute peak power use (meaning 100% processor load, full on ram use, all drives in heavy use, graphics cards straining, fans cranking) it'll need 400 watts.

Oh yeah, having the right voltages on all the rails is deadly important too. I got a nice antec case with an 500W Antec TruePower 2.0 PSU, which is a damn fine PSU.

[sinij]

I currently have AMD 64 3000 Radeon 9800 Pro, it over 2 years old now and showing its age as far as games go.  It will go as a hands-down to my S.O. as a much needed upgrade for aging and overclocked till it chokes P3 800. This way I have to put together computer, minus peripherals and HDs from scratch.

I realize that AM2 socket will require new CPU, I plan to get AMD Athlon64 X2 - 4400+ (Socket AM2) once AMD drops prices to stay competetive after being pwned by Core Duo E6xxx. Should be in a month or so.

  500W Antec TruePower 2.0 PSU

Currently I have Antec case with 300W supply and it works just fine, new one is newer version of the same old case with 400W Antec TruePower 2.0 PSU in it. I think PSU should be fine unless new CPU/GPUs require A LOT more juice than older stuff.

The only thing I'm concerned is cooling - I don't think stock coolers are up to a challange with now 1 extra core and potentially extra GPU generating heat.

[Shrike]

You'll get better performance out of one high-end card. One 7900GTX will blow two 7600GTs into the weeds. You also still have the option of adding a second GTX, though that'll depend on your monitor and its resolution.

I'm presently building (waiting for the AMD price cuts) a machine VERY similar to what you're looking at. The only difference is I'm going with the nForce 590 and using MSI 7900GTX(s). Only one at the present, but might need another. That will depend how well games play at 1920x1200.

Dual 7900GTXs consume a LOT of power. You will need a horse of a PSU to run these, especially with a dual core CPU. The main thing to look at is having the vid cards on separate 12v rails capable of supplying at least 12amps continuous.  If the PCIe connectors are on the same rail you could see power issues with dual GTX's. I have a 700watt FSP Epsilon. Probably a bit of overkill, but either the 600 or 700 watt Epsilons will power anything out now easily, are very quiet, and run at about 85% efficiency.

If you want a complete overview of PSUs and what goes on inside them, I'd check out this website: http://www.psuinquisitor.com/

Lot of good information there.

[Lt.Dan]

I thought you could buy PSUs that support SLI which have dual 12V rails.  Of course, if that's what you guys are talking about then move along to the next reply.

[Phred]

I upgraded recently and got a 7600gt and asus sli board. I'm quite happy with them. One thing to keep in mind when trying to make your upgrade future proof is dx10. It looks like that's gonna be a significant enough change to make things rough on older current cards atm, so you might want to hold off spending big money on a card until they show up.

[Engels]

I thought you could buy PSUs that support SLI which have dual 12V rails.  Of course, if that's what you guys are talking about then move along to the next reply.

I'm sure they do nowadays. I'd still side with Shrike in advocating one powerful card vs two semi-powerful card, if only because a later upgrade is simply buying a second card of the same, at which time the pricing is liable to have gone down. Furthermore, I really do have to wonder how long the market will bear the 'requirement' for computer geeks to install two cards. My limited perception of the computer market is that it starts out complicated, then eventually streamlines itself into simplicity over time, till the next 'cute' thing, like dual SLI cards, rears its ugly head.

All that said, what I'd really like to know is what games out there are so captivating that folks are wanting to upgrade their rigs to these crazy levels. I'm doing just fine playing Prey, Titan Quest and SiN with my 'old' rig, a AMD 64 3500 with an ATI 850 Pro (AGP). Although sure, I'd get some performance boost out of the latest and greatest, I still don't see spending the 2 or so grand to upgrade to new motherboard/cpu/gpu to be on the bleeding edge.

[Trippy]

My goal for GPU is: a) it should last for at least 2 years of gaming without updates b) work with my projector for watching movies c) be easy to update in a year to bring system to top notch without buying top-of-the-line card

One thing you have to be careful about is if you want to go the "delayed" SLI route you want to try and get a card that won't be out of production within the timeframe you are thinking about adding the second card. For example, I got a 7800 GT end of last year thinking I might get a second one eventually but the manufacturer of my card (eVGA) no longer makes one. Oops. Yes I can get another vendor's card and it should work...in theory. And this wasn't just a recent thing, basically once the 7900 GT came out most of the vendors stopped making 7800 GTs.

What is whole deal about 800Watt power supplies; do I really need anything more than 400W to drive 2GPUs, CPU, 2 raid SATA HDs and CD/DVD burner and DVD reader?

You might. Most of the NVIDIA SLI certified power supplies are 500 Watt+ but even that's a bit misleading since the power requirements can change as new cards come out. I.e. if you get something on the lower end it might only put out enough current for say a pair of 7900 GT-class cards and not a pair of 7950 GTX monstrosities (NVIDIA splits them out on their SLI certified eq page which is nice).

I thought you could buy PSUs that support SLI which have dual 12V rails.  Of course, if that's what you guys are talking about then move along to the next reply.

If you are going to go the high end route you might as well get one with three or even four 12V rails rather than just two. There's a limit on the max current on a single 12V line in the ATX spec (though some PS manufacturers exceed that).

[Shrike]

If you're going the "big guns" route, you'll probably want 3 to 4 12v rails. The problem is most PSUs have the PCIe power connectors on the same rail. This won't get it done with a dual core CPU and 512mb video cards. They simply draw too much power for PSUs with dual rails. You'd probably be fine with 7900GTs, but not the latest GTXs. Same thing with the top end ATI cards. It's a known issue. You can power the second card from a molex-PCIe adapter from a HD line, but you better have about 16+ amps on that rail. It's not a simple issue and I would again recomend checking out PSUinquisitor and the johnnyguru site in particular.

I wouldn't advocate an SLI setup and plan on upgrading "later" with another card. The only reason I'm going this route is I'll either know I'll need the second card right away or I won't (in which case I'll have a lot more mobo than I need). I simply don't know what performace I'll see with a new 23" monitor. 1920x1200 is a beast to drive by all reports and I may need two cards. I might not. I won't know until the thing is up and running. I prefer simpler machines, but I'm upgrading into unknown territory for me, and I want to cover my bases.

As far as games that need this sort of horespower, well, Oblivion would be the obvious choice. It'll bring even the beefiest SLI rig to its knees as it is. CoV post-I7 is a real bear to run as well. I simply don't know what to expect with it at 1920x1200 (and it does have some issues with SLI). I'll probably resubscrice to EQ2 just to see that damned thing finally run at a decent framerate with more than 4 toons on screen. Sacred 2 is about a year or so out and it looks like it'll have some very ugly system reqs. Other than that, my old AXP3000/FX6800 is still pretty capable. The writing is on the wall for it, though, and it is time to upgrade and what I want to do now and in the near future seems to require a pretty complex and powerful box. My decision to go to a 23" LCD display is the clincher for an SLI rig. 1920x1200 simply requires a lot of video horsepower. If you're running a 20" monitor, then I think you'll find a single high-end card much preferable.

[Sky]

I haven't seen a compelling argument for dual gpu quite yet. You can get more bang for the buck with a (still overpriced imo) high end gpu. Now...if money's no object, go for dual high end gpus, but $1200 for just the video subsystem seems a bit nutty to me (and I have a 61" monitor, heh). I bet it still wouldn't run EQ2 at max settings, including shadows. I love me some shadows.

Make sure you get a quality name-brand psu! If you're building the scary dual-rig...dual-psu!

[sinij]

I have problems with throwing $1000+ just into graphic card, I don't see it as money well spent. I almost always buy everything 1-2 steps down from top of the line, computers, cars, clothing, electronics and vacations. Let someone else pay double for 10% improvement.

[Yegolev]

Maybe of interest, AnandTech recently laid out their vid card rundown: http://www.anandtech.com/guides/showdoc.aspx?i=2794&p=2

[sinij]

I just realized that card that I picked does not have VGA output. Since I'm very happy with my current monitor and don't plan buying new one just to jump formats I will have to find perfomance video card with VGA out. Any suggestions?

[Trippy]

I just realized that card that I picked does not have VGA output. Since I'm very happy with my current monitor and don't plan buying new one just to jump formats I will have to find perfomance video card with VGA out. Any suggestions?

It should come with a DVI -> VGA/DB-15 adapter, check the package contents. Otherwise you can spend a few dollars and get something like this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814999201

[Engels]

I just realized that card that I picked does not have VGA output. Since I'm very happy with my current monitor and don't plan buying new one just to jump formats I will have to find perfomance video card with VGA out. Any suggestions?

Get an adapter for it. There's no performance hit with the conversion. They're what? 10-15 bucks, if they didn't come included with your card.

[sinij]

Thanks! I thought it would be a lot more complicated considering different protocols/timing. Can anyone explain how come adapter works?

[Trippy]

Thanks! I thought it would be a lot more complicated considering different protocols/timing. Can anyone explain how come adapter works?

The DVI spec includes provisions for outputting analog signals in additional to the digital ones. It's the 4 pins off to the side of the connector that look sort of like:

* *
---
* *

It's not a requirement (there's like a bazillion DVI connector versions, well okay maybe more like 6) but all PC video cards that have DVI outputs include it.

[Strazos]

Sigh, this thread just reminds me that, except for one of my HDDs, a stick of ram, and my video card, my system is nearly 4 years old....not that it neccessarily runs poorly (though I've always had heat problems, and I cannot for the life of me figure That out).

Anyway, are there such a thing as Mobos which sport both PCIe and AGP slots? I'm going to have to do an overhaul sooner or later. I figure I can carry over the sound card, HDDs, optical drives...I'd like to be able to re-use my video card also, so I wouldn't have to upgrade to PCIe immediately, while being able to do so easily further down the line. Having to replace the Mobo to do a video card upgrade would stink.

[Engels]

Sigh, this thread just reminds me that, except for one of my HDDs, a stick of ram, and my video card, my system is nearly 4 years old....not that it neccessarily runs poorly (though I've always had heat problems, and I cannot for the life of me figure That out).

Anyway, are there such a thing as Mobos which sport both PCIe and AGP slots? I'm going to have to do an overhaul sooner or later. I figure I can carry over the sound card, HDDs, optical drives...I'd like to be able to re-use my video card also, so I wouldn't have to upgrade to PCIe immediately, while being able to do so easily further down the line. Having to replace the Mobo to do a video card upgrade would stink.

The short answer is yes, but no. The long answer is that while you may be able to find some motherboard out there that still has support for both AGP and PCIe, I wouldn't recommend them. For one, they probably have antiquated chipsets, like Nvidia nForce 3. Anyone who's suffered an nvidia 3 chipset will tell you how utterly unpredictable and buggy they are. Secondly, the design compromises that they had to do to stuff both AGP and PCIe onto a single board will likely mean that some video cards won't even fit.

What to do about it? You can purchase a PCIe card that's relatively inexpensive and on-par with your current AGP card while you save some dosh to get a fancier one later on. I know, as a solution, it sucks, since of course you will not see the big performance boost from getting one of the newer PCIe cards -and- you're having to spend 100 bucks on a video card simply 'keeping up', but that's what the industry is doing at the moment. Not much anyone can do about it.

I do not recommend, at this stage, buying a motherboard that's AGP only. If its any consolation, I'm also stuck in the same spot you are.  When I finally do upgrade, I am going to spend good money on a solid reliable motherboard, probably ASUS. I'm going to also buy a second case ( the Antec Lan Boy is my fave for fan capacity and visual clarity). I will probably buy a low end CPU and a low end PCIe card and then spend the rest of my money on RAM for it. Then I will use that box as either a web browser or data storage till I can spend the next chunk of change on a CPU and 'real' video card.

[dusematic]

With Windows XP Professional, is 3 gigs of RAM better than 2 gigs?  I mean, I know there's a limit to how much it recognizes, not sure about cost/benefit though.

[Trippy]

Sigh, this thread just reminds me that, except for one of my HDDs, a stick of ram, and my video card, my system is nearly 4 years old....not that it neccessarily runs poorly (though I've always had heat problems, and I cannot for the life of me figure That out).

Anyway, are there such a thing as Mobos which sport both PCIe and AGP slots? I'm going to have to do an overhaul sooner or later. I figure I can carry over the sound card, HDDs, optical drives...I'd like to be able to re-use my video card also, so I wouldn't have to upgrade to PCIe immediately, while being able to do so easily further down the line. Having to replace the Mobo to do a video card upgrade would stink.

Yes there is, and the performance is apparently pretty good as well.

I agree with Engels, though, that unless you have a high end AGP card at the moment you are probably better off just saving up the extra money and upgrading both at the same time.

[Kenrick]

Sigh, this thread just reminds me that, except for one of my HDDs, a stick of ram, and my video card, my system is nearly 4 years old....not that it neccessarily runs poorly (though I've always had heat problems, and I cannot for the life of me figure That out).

Anyway, are there such a thing as Mobos which sport both PCIe and AGP slots? I'm going to have to do an overhaul sooner or later. I figure I can carry over the sound card, HDDs, optical drives...I'd like to be able to re-use my video card also, so I wouldn't have to upgrade to PCIe immediately, while being able to do so easily further down the line. Having to replace the Mobo to do a video card upgrade would stink.

The short answer is yes, but no. The long answer is that while you may be able to find some motherboard out there that still has support for both AGP and PCIe, I wouldn't recommend them. For one, they probably have antiquated chipsets, like Nvidia nForce 3. Anyone who's suffered an nvidia 3 chipset will tell you how utterly unpredictable and buggy they are. Secondly, the design compromises that they had to do to stuff both AGP and PCIe onto a single board will likely mean that some video cards won't even fit.

What to do about it? You can purchase a PCIe card that's relatively inexpensive and on-par with your current AGP card while you save some dosh to get a fancier one later on. I know, as a solution, it sucks, since of course you will not see the big performance boost from getting one of the newer PCIe cards -and- you're having to spend 100 bucks on a video card simply 'keeping up', but that's what the industry is doing at the moment. Not much anyone can do about it.

I do not recommend, at this stage, buying a motherboard that's AGP only. If its any consolation, I'm also stuck in the same spot you are.  When I finally do upgrade, I am going to spend good money on a solid reliable motherboard, probably ASUS. I'm going to also buy a second case ( the Antec Lan Boy is my fave for fan capacity and visual clarity). I will probably buy a low end CPU and a low end PCIe card and then spend the rest of my money on RAM for it. Then I will use that box as either a web browser or data storage till I can spend the next chunk of change on a CPU and 'real' video card.

I recently started daydreaming about upgrading my video card to PCIe... until I realized what all it would require:

1)  The cost of the card itself (duh)

2)  The cost of a new motherboard that supports PCIe

3)  The cost of a new CPU that would go into said motherboard (apparently my socket 478 processor is not supported by ANY motherboards that have PCIe).

So yeah... that's a negative on the upgrade, ghost rider.

[Trippy]

With Windows XP Professional, is 3 gigs of RAM better than 2 gigs?  I mean, I know there's a limit to how much it recognizes, not sure about cost/benefit though.

Depends on how many applications you like to have open at once. I'm happy with 2 GBs but YMMV. There are games out there that will easily swallow 700 MB+ of RAM so if you have something like running and 1 GB worth of other apps running you are starting to get close to swapping territory since the OS will gobble up 128 MB+ by itself unless you go through and strip it down.

[Strazos]

Heh, I am still running a Socket A AMD system....so I really have no other place to go except for 64-bit....which would require a new mobo, cpu, probably video card, and also a new OS.

It makes me want to weep.



Also, damnit...I might have to crack my case open later this week and take a look at the cpu. The heat issues I am dealing with are rediculous. I've always had some trouble with heat....but the room I moved into is now smaller, with less circulation, and hence worse heat problems. I am hoping I can just re-apply some Arctic Silver or something. Also, since I'll have to deal with my bigass ThermalTake Volcano9 heatsink....which way ise the fan usualy supposed to be blowing. It was originally set to blown down onto the heatsink...but someone told me years ago that it should be sucking up, off of the cpu. I recently turned the fan over, and I thought it helped....but..well...

Help?

[Engels]

Heat issues are more about getting the hot air around the cpu -out- of the case more than blowing air on/off the cpu itself. How many side fans do you have running? Is one blowing air in, while the other blowing air out, as it should be? How many hard drives do you have running? Lastly, how are these heat issues manifesting themselves? You have to remember that what may seem like a crazy high temperature to you may actually be an acceptable operating speed for the chip. Also, when you put the new fan/heatsink on, did you remember to apply thermal paste? If you didn't, that's your problem right there.

[Kenrick]

While we're on the subject of heat and temperatures... what would be considered acceptable temps?

My chassis temp idles at between 30-35C, while my CPU idles at between 50-55C.

Peak temps are only ~5C higher or so.

[Strazos]

My case has no side fans. It has 2 intakes on the front, and exhaust out the back and top.

Running 2 HDDs, which the intanks blow right over.

The heat manifests itself by causing my system to reboot itself when the heat rises to the threshold I have set, which is a bit below the chip's max operating temp.

When I originally put the heatsink/fan on, yes I did use paste. When I messed with the fan, I simply detatched it from the heatsink; it hasn't left the slot in about 4 years. I'm thinking about taking the heatsink back off to take a look, and maybe apply new paste.


Kenrick: Those temps are fine. I am seeing much higher temps in my system. I think my PC desk is partially to blame, as the tower has to sit in a little cubby - the heat doesn't really have anywhere to go.

[dusematic]

With Windows XP Professional, is 3 gigs of RAM better than 2 gigs?  I mean, I know there's a limit to how much it recognizes, not sure about cost/benefit though.

Depends on how many applications you like to have open at once. I'm happy with 2 GBs but YMMV. There are games out there that will easily swallow 700 MB+ of RAM so if you have something like running and 1 GB worth of other apps running you are starting to get close to swapping territory since the OS will gobble up 128 MB+ by itself unless you go through and strip it down.

what do you mean by swapping territory?  basically i heard its not worth it to put 3 gigs in, because the performance gain is small.

[Strazos]

I think he means virtual memory.

[Trippy]

With Windows XP Professional, is 3 gigs of RAM better than 2 gigs?  I mean, I know there's a limit to how much it recognizes, not sure about cost/benefit though.

Depends on how many applications you like to have open at once. I'm happy with 2 GBs but YMMV. There are games out there that will easily swallow 700 MB+ of RAM so if you have something like running and 1 GB worth of other apps running you are starting to get close to swapping territory since the OS will gobble up 128 MB+ by itself unless you go through and strip it down.

what do you mean by swapping territory?  basically i heard its not worth it to put 3 gigs in, because the performance gain is small.

Unless you happen to be using a RAM disc the only real performance benefit you get for adding lots of RAM is to keep Windows from swapping memory contents to disc (I'll ignore the fact that even if you TURN OFF paging Windows will still do it). That is what kills performance. Reading and writing to disc is much much much slower than reading and writing to RAM.

To give a simplified example, let's say you have 512 MB of RAM and let's say Windows XP by itself is using 128 MB of RAM so you have 384 MB of RAM for other stuff. Now let's load up, say, Firefox which is a ridiculous memory hog and use that for a while. Then we'll launch Word and use that for a bit and then Excel, which strangely seems to be taking a while to load, and then switch back to Firefox...and kerchunk kerchunk kerchunk your disc drive starts thrashing around like it's possessed. That's cause there wasn't enough physical memory for Windows to fit all three apps into RAM at the same time so it "swapped" the memory Firefox was using onto the disc drive when you loaded Excel (which is why it took so long to load) but when you switched back to Firefox it had to read that info off the disc back into RAM.

If you go to Task Manager under Performance you can see how much of the disc swap space it's using by looking at the Page File usage (swapping is also called paging as in writing a "page" of RAM to disc). Now Windows XP will always use some amount page file even if it doesn't really have to (and even if you turn off virtual memory, *sigh*) so it can be hard to tell without some experience if adding more RAM will cut down on your swapping but that's what it means when people talk about improving performance by adding RAM and why you may have heard that going from 2 GB to 3 GB is a small performance gain -- it doesn't actual increase performance unless it cuts down on the swapping, which for most people it wouldn't since they aren't filling up all 2 GBs.

[Sky]

There's a definite upgrade block going on right now. My pc is also getting long in the tooth, I think it's 3-1/2yrs old (XP Barton core 3000+ with a 9800pro 256MB). I'd really like to upgrade, but it'll be a new cpu/mobo/gpu dealie like everyone else who built good pcs when I did. I'm not sure a new AGP card would be worth the upgrade, and my pc will play anything, including Oblivion, just fine (maybe not all bells+whistles, but hey). My biggest advantage is probably my 1280x720 monitor, since resolutions have been pushing ever upwards.

This is the longest I've gone between upgrades, and with a looming house purchase (if I can find one...), this pc might be a real long toother bastard before I get the dough to build a new one...

[Strazos]

I figure it will cost me at least $700 or so to do an overhaul on my system. At least I don't have to start worrying about it until Vista comes out.

$100 OS, $100 Mobo, $250 Vid card, $250 CPU....this is a guesstimation.

[Engels]

My case has no side fans. It has 2 intakes on the front, and exhaust out the back and top.

Running 2 HDDs, which the intanks blow right over.

The heat manifests itself by causing my system to reboot itself when the heat rises to the threshold I have set, which is a bit below the chip's max operating temp.

When I originally put the heatsink/fan on, yes I did use paste. When I messed with the fan, I simply detatched it from the heatsink; it hasn't left the slot in about 4 years. I'm thinking about taking the heatsink back off to take a look, and maybe apply new paste.


Kenrick: Those temps are fine. I am seeing much higher temps in my system. I think my PC desk is partially to blame, as the tower has to sit in a little cubby - the heat doesn't really have anywhere to go.

My bad, I did mean rear and front fans. Are they both blowing air in? Or is one taking and one flushing? By the way, what chip is it and what do you have the turn off temp set at? Intel as you know is rated to run far hotter than AMD.