Custom Cooler for GTX 470?

[Jd007]

Hi guys:

What's a good custom cooler for reference design GTX 470? I'm trying to lower my temps and noise. Have about $50 to spend. I know about the TR Spitfire (a bit over my budget) and the GELID Icy Vision (which does not work on the GTX 470). Right now I have my eyes on the Zalman VF3000F, but cannot find anywhere that have it for sale. Anybody have tips? Thanks a lot!

 

[dorky82]

I couldnt find one myself so I did fan mod.
Take off casing and attach 80mm fan to heatsink using ziptie. dropped my temp to 50idle 65 load. Was at 70idle/94load. No more loud noise.
Cheap $3 mod that works.
But you'll need 3 slots.

 

[Bman123]

That's awesome and really cheap, better to spend $3 then to spend $50 and get the same results

 

[Tsavo]

I couldnt find one myself so I did fan mod.
Take off casing and attach 80mm fan to heatsink using ziptie. dropped my temp to 50idle 65 load. Was at 70idle/94load. No more loud noise.
Cheap $3 mod that works.
But you'll need 3 slots.

Got any pics?

Did you disconnect the factory fan?

 

[amenx]

I couldnt find one myself so I did fan mod.
Take off casing and attach 80mm fan to heatsink using ziptie. dropped my temp to 50idle 65 load. Was at 70idle/94load. No more loud noise.
Cheap $3 mod that works.
But you'll need 3 slots.

I've seen others do that (at Guru3d) and while it may cool the core well, it sacrifices cooling of other vital parts, namely the VRMs. Thats the purpose of the fan housing/shroud, to channel and direct airflow to all the components. The VRMs already get hot and this can happen with aggressive overclocking:http://www.geeks3d.com/20091209/geforce-gtx-275-vrm-damaged-by-furmark/

(cant embed links for some reason).

And as we all know, fermi is a bit hotter than the last gen cards, I personally would not do that with my 470.

 

[Hauk]

I've seen others do that (at Guru3d) and while it may cool the core well, it sacrifices cooling of other vital parts, namely the VRMs. Thats the purpose of the fan housing/shroud, to channel and direct airflow to all the components. The VRMs already get hot and this can happen with aggressive overclocking:http://www.geeks3d.com/20091209/geforce-gtx-275-vrm-damaged-by-furmark/

(cant embed links for some reason).

And as we all know, fermi is a bit hotter than the last gen cards, I personally would not do that with my 470.

If I'm understanding the mod correctly, he removed the shroud, exposing the heatsink and zipped an 80mm fan to it. If that's all he removed, the VRMs and memory are still sinked via the black baseplate: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_470/images/cooler1.jpg

GTX 470/480 is beautiful in that one can work with the GPU heatsink without ever having to remove the baseplate. No screwing up VRM/memory thermal pads. So yea, one could install a fan of some type to the GPU heatsink, unplug the stock fan header, and never mess with the baseplate. The baseplate has very small dissipation fins under the GPU heatsink which will get cooled by the alt fan, so the stock fan not spinning really isn't a deal breaker. I'd prolly not do the mod, but could see it working.

More elegant (and costly) solution: http://www.arctic-cooling.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=2_&mID=619

 

[dorky82]

I just removed plastic casing. Never touched baseplate.
Also have 120mm side fan blowing on to 470.
Case temp went up few degrees but its well worth it.
I plan to get zalman or accelero when I go sli(if they fix downclocking).

didnt unplug stock fan. its at default mode and never go above 40%.

 

[Hauk]

Yea the stock fan at 40% is very quiet, no problem leaving it connected. Interesting mod, heck it does the job. If considering SLI, Zalman/Accelero coolers are both 3 slot..

 

[happy medium]

http://www.arctic-cooling.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=2_&mID=619

best one I could find.

 

[Jd007]

I couldnt find one myself so I did fan mod.
Take off casing and attach 80mm fan to heatsink using ziptie. dropped my temp to 50idle 65 load. Was at 70idle/94load. No more loud noise.
Cheap $3 mod that works.
But you'll need 3 slots.

Thanks for the tip, I think this is a very nice mod. Do you have any pictures of the mod? Also how did you take off just the casing and not the fan/backplate?

 

[dorky82]

plastic casing just pops off.
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=327969

I used 80mm because 120mm was too big

 

[Bman123]

Slap a good 80mm fan on there and as long as you have good case airflow all should be good