Blue Orb or Crystal Orb or Nothing New to Cool GEFORCE 3 TI200...?

[Nighthawk69]

Hi there...

I have a Gainward GeForce 3 Ti200 which is a great overclocker (Golden Sample), which I am able to run at 230/520 with intensive, high-res games and up to 250/540 in lower resolutions. I want to squeeze that last bit out of the GPU (even though the increased GPU speed won't really give me anything, since the RAM is the most important, but you know how it is!) so I was wondering if I should go ahead and get the slightly cheaper Blue Orb or spend a few bucks extra and get the Crystal Orb, or will it really matter which one I put on the GPU? Or should I even change out the HSF?

Suggests are more than welcome!

Thanks!

 

[AA0]

I have a crystal orb on my 8500, I like them better then the blue orbs by far.

 

[Freshbrain]

You should change your HSF only if your GPU is heating up too much, if it isn't you won't notice the change.
Crystal orb is better than blue orb, check your temps first and then decide what is best for you. Personally I would go for the crystal one to make a real change

 

[DivideBYZero]

I've just put a crystal orb on my badly cooled Ti200, ABIT Siluro if you need to know the culprits...

Core does 250 now up from 240. Card is generally cooler. Couldn't touch the back of the card b4, no can hold a finger at the back of the core no probs. Used some ASII as well just to make the job good.

Memory is another thing. Although I got 4ns RAM, even with new cooling (TT mem kit) I can only get to 475 without artifacts in 3DM2k1.

See my topic 'ti200 running to hot' for more Ti200 cooling madness.

 

[scoobydooby]

I've got the same card as you and with stock cooling I got 251/510. Then I added a lapped crystal orb and a card cooler(80 cfms) and it wouldn't go any higher. I'm still glad I bought it though because I'm sure it keeps my card nice and cool(so to speak). BTW the core speed is more important than the mem with the geforce3's. I say go for a crystal orb.
Scoob

 

[Nighthawk69]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone! If anyone else has done this or has an opinion, please let me know!

 

[bdunosk]

Yo...

I got the crystal orb for my Gainward, same model. I had 235/545 before, now I can get 245 (though I'm not sure how stable it is, since I haven't had time to do a test longer than a few runs through quake 3 timedemo).

I don't know that it's worth it... it's significantly louder than the stock cooling option, not so much in fan whine but in air turbulence. I can definitely hear more of a hissing noise, which is annoying to me since I was doing such a good job at keeping my fan noise down. Heh... oh well. I guess the stock cooling on our video card is pretty good, though.

 

[tazdevl]

Crystal orb is probably one of the better smack 'em on solutions out there. It has a copper base under that nickel coating, one piece as well... transfers heat a bit better.

Do a search on google, there are hard numbers out there that prove the Corb outperforms both standard HSF and the Blorb.