the two-card game

Let's take a look at the first configuration I built, with two gtx280 gpus. I actually bought three cards, but got scared about the thermal limitations of my Zalman cooler (which are like those of Zalman XT external cooler): nominally only 500 W heat removed.
well, theoretically I had 3 x 236W of heat just from the 3 cards! so my system, on paper, was limited to 2 cards... but I figured that all the heat doesn't go into the coolant.












the de-gassing of the cooling system has to be done with all the waterblocks below the pump.
no leaks were found. if you use Zalman, remember not to give up (like someone on some forum did)
after a few beeps and disconnections of the pump. this is a normal behavior. before most air is gone you'll have to restart the system up to ten times. I recommend to turn the waterblocks as much possible during this; it helps the air escape.

I like this shot, it shows perhaps the first supercomputer built from pieces of nylon-reinforced garden hose from home depot :-) the wide spacing between the cards is due to the location of the 2 fastest PCIe x16 slots.