I wasn't able to hold my fingers to the heat spreaders on the back of the cards for more than a few seconds, I am going to guess 90-100C

*chuckles*

I would like to be able to run Crysis on this rig without it melting

Not possible in any combinations of GeForce 7 card. This game is just too heavy for shader anemic Nvidia DirectX9 cards.

My issue is that they both run rather hot even at idle.

GeForce 7800 has very primitive energy saving features in 2D mode so it's to be expected. And operating temperature in 3D could be quite high, reaching 80C.

Does anyone know if these cards need the 6 pin power

Yes, they consume more than 75W, which is PCIe limitation. You can underclock them though, but not undervolt them by any software, so former has limited usefulness. Latter is possible on Radeon X1800/1900 though, which allow to tweak all major card voltages in OS.

Hi,

I have two GTX 7800 (256Mb) in SLI in one of my setups too. It tends to be quite hot. Even with brand new thermal paste / thermal pad (tested both) + complete cleaning + lubrificated fans.
Running F.E.A.R Ultra settings @1080p, the cards are around 90°C (Seen on GPUZ)
Interestingly, one card is heating more than the other. Even if the card are identical (Winfast 7800GTX 256). Maybe SLI is not 100% symetrical and on card takes more workload.

I'm trying to switch to GTX7800 512Mb but they are quite difficult to find... got one, will wait for another...

Easier to grap two 7900GTX or 7950GT with 512 Mb.

One of my most disappointing upgrades and least favorite NVidia series of cards was the 7000 series. I had an EVGA GeForce 6800 Ultra Extreme Edition and moved to a 7800GTX in anticipation of Oblivion. Oblivion ran just ok at medium quality and quite sluggish at max settings with the 7800 GTX (forget my other specs, but they weren't shabby). So I bought another for my first SLI setup. I can't tell you how surprised I was when I averaged about a 30% overall increase in performance. Maybe 40% if I got really lucky. For that kind of money I was kinda pissed. Oblivion ran smoother, but two 7800GTX cards were still not enough to run Oblivion silky smooth at max settings and my system was now a space heater. So yeah, your story does not surprise me. I jumped on the 8800GTX as soon as I could and never looked back.

I can always remember the game that made me upgrade. The 6800 Ultra was for Doom 3 and HL2. 7800 GTX for Oblivion.

BUT

The 8800GTX was, for the first time, in desperation to just get away from the 7800 GTX and not for a particular game. 🤣

GeForce 7 series overall aged like milk. Horrible driver transition with Vista and very lackluster performance in games after 2006.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2021-12-02, 13:36:

Easier to grap two 7900GTX or 7950GT with 512 Mb.

Yes, but i try to have setups of specific era.
This one is strictly <= 2005.
78XX are 2005 cards
79XX are from 2006.

For the same reason, i use socket 939 instead of AM2 (2006)
I had a lot of hesitation to pick a CPU. Single or dual core ?
In 2005, as a teenager with no money i had an Athlon64 single core. Dual core was only a dream.
Vengeance is a dish served cold
In 2021 i took my revenge and picked Opteron 180 (2C, 2.4Ghz OC@2.6) a late 2005 CPU. (~800€ in 2005 -> 40-80€ in 2021)

liqmat wrote on 2021-12-02, 15:14:

I can always remember the game that made me upgrade. The 6800 Ultra was for Doom 3 and HL2. 7800GTX for Oblivion.

I played Oblivion probably more than 1k hours. But my computer was not that great. Athlon64 3000+, Radeon 9600XT.
I bougth that when i was ~16yo in 2004 and used it until around 2010. Oblivion has never been fluid for me 😁

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2021-12-02, 19:08:

GeForce 7 series overall aged like milk. Horrible driver transition with Vista and very lackluster performance in games after 2006.

You're right. I always call it the 7000 series. Correction: 7 series.

Dual card cooling was a problem for sure. I have a feeling dual card setups benefit a lot from the blower style coolers that exhaust out the rear. As long as they have some space between them, another problem that came up.