My Radeon 9700 Heatsink Mod

[BullsOnParade]

After reviewing this thread.
And reading around rage3d.

I decided to try my hand at fitting a better heatsink to my 9700.
Here are the pics

dM

 

[JustAnAverageGuy]

is that taking up 2 or 3 slots? :Q

 

[BullsOnParade]

3, though aside from my audigy 2 i haven't needed any other pci cards.

 

[Peter D]

Nice job! Tried OC'ing the card?

 

[Corporate Thug]

that looks like a whole lot of work

 

[BullsOnParade]

Vegetto: I just tinkered with the clock and ram speeds, i didn't really check to
see what max i could get. I think i'll try benching it with 3dMark03 and the artifact
tester that comes with the omega drivers. Let me know if there's anything specific you
want to see done.

Shady06: The milling machine really made the job pretty quick. I'd say it took maybe 15mins to
get it cut down, then 10 more to pull the old heatsink off, disolve the thermalpad, drill holes into
the new heat sink and tighten it down.

 

[Auric]

Put the fan behind the card.

 

[AIWGuru]

WOW! THAT MUST BE AS FAST AS A GEFORCE FX 6800 ULTRA!!!11!!1!

 

[InlineFive]

Originally posted by: AIWGuru
WOW! THAT MUST BE AS FAST AS A GEFORCE FX 6800 ULTRA!!!11!!1!

Stop the thread crapping already! :disgust: So it's got a big heatsink, what does that matter?!

-Por

 

[MichaelD]

Holy crap, all these replies and nobody has commented on the guy's resourcefullness! (sp?)

I think he did a GREAT job! I like how he milled the HS in relief, so that the "middle part" of the bottom of the HS actually sticks "down into" the hole created by the shim. A fine job, my friend! Real nice.

What makes it doubly cool are the excellent pics and mini-webpage about it. Very cool.

OK...so.

Why are you still using a thermal pad? You've got optimum contact b/t the HS and GPU. Use some AS and crank that mutha up. How much were you able to increase the core speeds over "pre mod?"

 

[BullsOnParade]

OC'd the card a bit last night.
clock@400
ram@350

ran artifact tester on average twice just to check, came up clean.
then played unreal2k4 for about a half hour and some painkiller, both
ran fine without any lockups. Will try and get 3dmark03 on it and get
some numbers, as well as OC some more.

dM

Edit: Stock speeds are 325 mhz core and 310 mhz,
previously OC'd and ram was holding me back, got close
to 375 on the ram.

 

[Cheetah8799]

If the ram was holding you back, how are you cooling it now? From the pics it appears that you don't have any ramsinks at all. Just the one big one on the gpu.

Since you have the milling machine, you should try a project I've been thinking of for a while. If you can get some blocks of aluminum, you could measure the size required to attach large heatsinks to the ram chips. Basically have 2 large "L" shaped heatsinks that only touch on the ram chips. You could use your milling machine to trim down the aluminum in places that other components would stick up in the way.

Also, I wonder if it would help if you mounted the 80mm fan "above" the card, that way the dead spot under the center of the fan isn't directly on top of your heatsink. Also, the fan is so close to your sound card that it seems like it won't pull much air. Having the card right there may also cause unwanted noise, due to the way the air is flowing through.

BTW: very nice work. I like it!