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Experiment: Zalman VF700-CU

B

Borealis7

Platinum Member
Hey.

i just got a Zalman VF700-Cu GPU cooler as a present and i wanted to install it on my X850XT (its running on stock fan now, also i dont *plan* on OCing)

so far so good.

Now, my father, who is an Electronics Engineer who among other things designs cooling
for big servers came up with an idea to mount the HSF on the *other* side of the PCB (and thus keeping the stock fan on)

his reasoning is: on the other side of the PCB just below the GPU there is a 2x2 inch steel square that looks like it could transfer the heat from the GPU to the cooler with the help of some thermal grease.

also, hot air rises. therefore, more hot air will go to the Zalman and dissipate in the case (which is very ventilated thanks to two 5" fans mounted on the side of the case, just above all the PCI and AGP slots).

i told him its simply not the way this cooler was intended to work and that i would ask around.

basically, the X850XT is the hottest thing in my case. my CPU runs at 55C max on load and mobo stays at around 37C, my X850XT doesnt report temps (XpertVision) so i assume its somewhere in the high 60s or low 70s when i play Oblivion.
also, the purpose of the cooler is largly to extend the life span of the card rather than OC it (ambient temp where i live can get pretty high in the summer).

have you heard of such a thing as mounting the cooler on the wrong side?

also on a side note, can anyone tell me what is the ACPI temp reported in SpeedFan? at first i though it was the PSU but it doesnt seem right...

thanks.
 
That's just about the craziest thing I've ever heard :Q, and not in a good way.

I'm not exactly sure what you are talking about when you refer to the 2x2 steel square but it could be a PCI-E to AGP bridge if your card is AGP since that GPU its natively PCI-E only (I think).

Either way if it's cooled by simple sheet of steel it obviously doesn?t need much of any cooling, most of the those chips go without anything at all on ATi cards.

I would say it's a very bad idea (if it?s even possible), and I fear for those servers.

P.S. welcome to the forums. :thumbsup:
 
On my PCI-E X850XT, the piece of metal in the back was in an L shape and seemed to be the heatspreader for the RAM. It would get absolutely burning hot. If you want to cool it, just point a fan on it. Something like this might prove useful. Getting the VF700 to mount onto the back will probably be rather tricky.

BITD I had a Voodoo 3 2000 (overclocked to around 3500 levels) with a heatsink mounted on the backside using "Frag Tape." It was actually pretty easy because the back of the Voodoo 3 cards were pretty smooth - nothing stuck out as there were no components on that side. This is no longer true for most modern graphics cards.
 
uh, does the zalman vf700 not fit on ur xt850?

if it does. mount it the way it should. i will bet my first born that it'll cool the gpu down much more than mounting it the other way around.

if you properly cool the gpu, the heat that dissipates from the back of the circuit board will also lower. you already have the side fans moving the air around the agp slot, so I wouldn't even worry about it much.

if you still want to mount something on the back so bad, find a way to mount the vf700 on the gpu, and use the stock cooler on the back.

but honestly, just put it on the die. yes, if you can somehow cool the back of the board it may help a bit.. and come on, what will cool better? a direct contact to the die or a contact to the circuit board on the back of where the die sits?
 
I'm actually kind of surprised your dad (being an electrical engineer and all) didn't think of this: heat transfer works in kind of the same way as electricity does. In heat the electrons are vibrating rapidly and electricity the electrons are flowing. The reason it's so hot on the back is cuz of all the wires and solder that are back there that conduct heat well just like they conduct electricity well. But the heat source is from the gpu on the front, so mount it correctly and you'll be fine. Believe me, I just got one of these things and it cools down very well. Overclocked I never get above 63C.
 
So instead of a 10yr lifespan, you think this will help your card last longer than that? It might increase the lifespan, but since it will become useless a few years from now anyway, how will you know if it worked or not? The hardware is already worth less than $100 TODAY. 2 years from now you'll have a hard time GIVING the thing away. It won't be Torrenza-compatible!!

Hardware is rated to long outlast its utility. Only hard drives and fans die before their time, and that's because they have moving parts. Any other piece of hardware you have will long outlive its effectiveness at running current software.

Putting the cooler on to increase the lifespan is just as useless as this video card will be 5 years from now. If anything, the smart thing to do is overclock it and get more bang for your buck for the 2-3 years that it is capable of running any games with any sort of competency. If you halve the lifespan by overclocking, the thing will still be around longer than it is worth having. Find me someone running 5-yr old video hardware running today's games (Battlefield 2 on a GeForce 2 GTS anyone?), and I'll show you what 4 FPS looks like.
 
Originally posted by: Borealis7
Now, my father, who is an Electronics Engineer who among other things designs cooling
for big servers came up with an idea to mount the HSF on the *other* side of the PCB (and thus keeping the stock fan on)

his reasoning is: on the other side of the PCB just below the GPU there is a 2x2 inch steel square that looks like it could transfer the heat from the GPU to the cooler with the help of some thermal grease...
Click to expand...
Well, if I'm reading this correctly, it's NOT as crazy as some ppl would think...

What your dad is talking about is running two HSFs instead of one, right?

And, I think I understand his reasoning, however, it's gonna be a kludge, aesthetically, and really heavy!

That said, I think you could accomplish the same thing by going with a ThermalRight V-1 Ultra (with two fans) instead of using the stock HSF on one side of the PCB and a Zalman VF700-CU on the other.

Here's some purdy pics of what I'm talking about -- toward the bottom of the page. Warning! NOT dialup friendly!

No reason to reinvent the wheel... 😉
 
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