6870 stock cooler compatible w/ a 5870?

TidusZ

Golden Member
Nov 13, 2007
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The cooler on my Radeon 5870 has a dying fan that can't be greased and someone locally has a "HD 6870's barely used stock Asus Direct CU cooler laying around."

Anyone know if this would be compatible with my card? I guess it is not a reference ATI 6870 but the asus one with a modified heatsink, http://www.hardwareheaven.com/revie...rectcu-graphics-card-review-introduction.html

My card is reference ATI 5870.
 
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OVerLoRDI

Diamond Member
Jan 22, 2006
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Most likely not. Ask the guy to measure the whole spacing on the cooler and see if it matches yours. If it does it might work, but there are 3 things you'd have to consider.

1) height of the GPU itself. It is possible that the 5870 die and the 6870 die or different heights. In theory this should not matter, but it is still something to keep in mind.

2) clearance of the surrounding components. The Asus Direct CU is not a reference board, and this the cooler will possibly have clearance issues on reference boards. Also VRM heatsinks. You will likely have to use the 5870 stock VRM heatsinks and hope that the 6870 cooler clears those as well

3) Powering the fan. It is likely that the ASUS Direct CU does not have the same fan plug as your 5870. So that presents complications.

So, it could work... but that is a lot of variables. It is the sort of thing that you'd have to test before you bought sort of thing.
 
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gorobei

Diamond Member
Jan 7, 2007
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i'm gonna go with a definitely not. the ref 5870 fan is a large black backplate affair that goes over the ram and vrm, the asus directCU is unlikely to fit over that plate and wont touch the vrm if you dont use the backplate.