Best cheap cooler for 6800GT->Ultra? Or just reseat and apply AS5?

[soccerballtux]

A year or so ago I fasioned a cheap-as-in-free ducting system to suck away the hot air from my CPU out the back, and to only allow cool air in the top of the CPU.

Well, the other day I decided to add in some ducting for my graphics card. The 6800GT didn't like it so much....I'm hitting 85C at 400/1100. I made it so that this extra fan blew air in the same direction as the stock cooling, and then the ducting system funnelled that air under the foam board I'm using that keeps my CPU cool. Now the CPU under Prime95 was hitting 52C (on a 10$ replacement fan from newegg), and when I pumped up the gfx, my card hit the 85-7C, but the processor stayed at 52. So my CPU ducting is working.

But now the card.....its clearly too hot.

Would reseating it with some AS5 and polishing the stock cooling be enough? Or should I look into buying another cooler? I wouldn't mind getting an NV5 if it meant I'd be able to go up to 425/1125 or something of the sort.

 

[SynthDude2001]

I don't have any experiences with third party coolers, but I had great results when I reseated my 6800GT's heatsink with AS5 a few months back (I'm also running at Ultra speeds). My card was hitting as high as 100-105C at full load and I was getting frequent crashes/artifacts...after I re-did the heatsink, my load temperatures literally dropped by 15-20C. It's still running hot, but then again all 6-series cards do for the most part - and especially when you consider that I have a PCI card right next to my 6800GT, I'm satisfied with my new temperatures (no more artifacts or crashing).

I would recommend at least trying that first (though your temps, while high, aren't really all that awful). If you're not satisfied with the results after that, then you could always go ahead and order something like an NV Silencer (or whatever it is that they're called) and likely get much cooler temps...