What I thought of when I saw that article... "could that heatsink be fitted so that the heatpipes go over the edge of the video card and to the other side?" This would not block any slots below the card though may possibly interfere with stuff above it. Somehow, even without seeing an SI-97 in person I think the pipes aren't long enough to reach the GPU core itself - but an interesting idea nonetheless. My thinking is that whoever does these mods are trying too hard. Here's my simpler idea:
Heatpipe cooler
PCI fan card
If the motherboard has the PCIe 16X slot with a bunch of unused PCIe 1X slots above it as well as unused PCI slots below, can perhaps put these slot fans (or make your own using some
thin fans) on both sides of the heatpipe cooler. Another possibility would be to have a case with a side blowhole fan pointing down over the video card with one of these heatpipe coolers. I remember when the heatpipe coolers were more popular (before the AC Silencers, Zalman 700, etc) sites who tested them said that temperatures were hotter than stock cooling
BUT when a fan was attached to them the cooling was fantastic.
Facebook
Twitter