9700 Pro heatsink

[SneakyStuff]

Id like your input if you own a 9500 pro, or a 9700 pro. How easy is it to take the stock heatsink off? clean the GPU, and apply a thermal compound of your own? Would me taking off the stock heatsink, cleaning the core, and applying ceramique offer any temperature decrease?

 

[Concillian]

IT's not difficult. In many cases it will help because the SHIM may actually be contacting as much ore more than the core. For the cards I've gotten (all used so no warrantee to worry about) the first thing I did after booting and making sure they worked was to remove the shim. One of them didn't have too much thermal transfer material on the core, the other two looked pretty good though.

 

[Cawchy87]

The stock heatsink is useless no matter what thermal compound you have on it.

 

[VIAN]

It was easy to take off the HSF.
It wasn't easy to take off the shim. I had to apply quite a bit of force and it went flying across my living room.
Cleaning the GPU was much easier to clean than removing the shim. Not to difficult.
It will offer a temp decrease, cause anything is better than a pad, but I would suggest to buy a 15 dollar VGA Silencer. It will complement all that work you just did.

 

[SneakyStuff]

Originally posted by: VIAN
It was easy to take off the HSF.
It wasn't easy to take off the shim. I had to apply quite a bit of force and it went flying across my living room.
Cleaning the GPU was much easier to clean than removing the shim. Not to difficult.
It will offer a temp decrease, cause anything is better than a pad, but I would suggest to buy a 15 dollar VGA Silencer. It will complement all that work you just did.

Alright, that seems to be the cooler of choice, anywhere I can buy it for $15? everywhere I look it's like 27.

 

[Cawchy87]

http://www.aerocooler.com/shop...M&prod_id=FANACVS3 - 17

http://www.newegg.com/app/view...r1c3watch&ATT=Fans - 20

www.pricewatch.com i thought a plantinum would know that.

 

[SneakyStuff]

Ok, 2 questions, 1) to install this all I need to do is take the stock heatsink off right? and 2) Will this allow me to overclock the card to a point where it becomes cost effective to buy it?

edit: and what about the memory modules? are they ok to chill as is?

 

[Concillian]

My overclock difference was:
~340-345 on stock HSF
~370-375 with VGA Silencer.

Tough to justify 20 MHz for $20. It significantly reduced my case temps though with the exhaust out the back. The 9700 puts out quite a bit of heat.

I wouldn't worry too much about the memory. People haven't gotten significantly more out of them by cooling them more.

 

[SneakyStuff]

I'm buying this card, to replace my 5700u, for games like ROME total war, Unreal 2k4, The Sims 2, and HALO/a little bit of Doom 3. I haven't been able to find any ROME benchmarks... anywhere!

 

[VIAN]

I would install some copper Ramsinks on the memory modules, it will provide a decent OC.

My experience:

350/335 Stock
370/345 VGA Silencer w/Aluminum Ramsinks
405/365 w/Volt mod and OCing the core first
395/370 w/Volt mod and OCing the memory first

Final OC allows:

Can play doom3 @ 1024x768 on Medium Quality w/o AA/AF and no Vsync w/OC. This is before AI advanced.

UT2k4 @ 1280x1024, 8xAF, AI advanced, no Vsync and all in game options on.

 

[ronnn]

very easy to take the heatsink off, I just left the shim on - as heard a few horror stories.

 

[Auric]

It is easy enough but I wouldn't bother voiding your warranty just to remount the original HS, besides the protective spacer would have to be removed if thermal tape was not to be used again and then it would be more easily damaged although this isn't too significant since you can take your time as opposed to with mass production. If you do want to replace the HS for higher clocks and/or less noise then obviously it is preferred to use one that is designed for use with the spacer.