Need Heatsink/Fan solution for Radeon 9700 Pro

[Jennerstein]

A month or so before Christmas, my Sapphire Atlantis Radeon 9700 Pro's fan died. Stopped spinning completely. Anyway, I went looking in all the local computer stores for a good heatsink or fan for the Radeon, but all they had was your typical VGA chipset fan. So I bought it as a quick fix. Applied the thermal grease, fit the fan on the core, and plugged in the fan into my power supply. The computer's stable now, although I do get a few artifacts in Wolf ET running 1280x1024 with Catalyst 3.10 drivers.

Because I've been so busy with various projects, I've only now found the time to contemplate finding a proper heatsink/fan solution for my Radeon. I just want a cost effective sensitive cooling solution to allow my Radeon to run all my games at stock card speeds. If I can overclock the card, that's fine, but I'm not buying a heatsink or fan to overclock. I just want to fix the card.

I've done a few NewEgg and Google searches but am not sure where to turn. Definitely will not use the Zalman Heatpipe, since it's already destroyed a previous AIW 9700 Pro I had. It slipped while I transporting the case and mushed the core 🙁.

If anyone could give me some tips, I'd greatly appreciate it.

 

[MDE]

The Vantec Iceberq4 should do the job nicely. It's copper, small, and will cool the 9700/9800 (don't know about overclocking headroom). The only downside I see to it is that the fan spins at 5000RPM, so it'll create a bit of noise.

 

[Jeff H]

Jennerstein, take a look at this cooler from Arctic Cooling. Something a little different from the Vantec IceBerg coolers. I was going to recommend the Thermaltake G4 but that doesn't work w/ the Radeon boards, according to Thermaltake.

Here's a review. Oh, the reviewer says there's no cons. The only one I see is you'll lose the adjacent slot, but that's rarely used these days.

 

[MangoTBG]

Originally posted by: Jeff H
Jennerstein, take a look at this cooler from Arctic Cooling. Something a little different from the Vantec IceBerg coolers. I was going to recommend the Thermaltake G4 but that doesn't work w/ the Radeon boards, according to Thermaltake.

Here's a review. Oh, the reviewer says there's no cons. The only one I see is you'll lose the adjacent slot, but that's rarely used these days.

Make sure you read all of the reviews. Go to google and search Arctic Cooling vga silencer review. You'll get like 10 or so reviews. I don't trust reviews where the item reviewed is sent on behalf of a store.

Thanks go out to my friend Rodney over at the very popular Silicon Valley Compucycle (SVC) site where many of us get our mod supplies.

Just like Jeff pointed out, "No Cons"...I'm sorry but EVERYTHING has a Con, and some of those reviews on google say that they expected more out of it.


It's still a nice cooler for $22.

 

[PliotronX]

Originally posted by: MangoTBG

Originally posted by: Jeff H
Jennerstein, take a look at this cooler from Arctic Cooling. Something a little different from the Vantec IceBerg coolers. I was going to recommend the Thermaltake G4 but that doesn't work w/ the Radeon boards, according to Thermaltake.

Here's a review. Oh, the reviewer says there's no cons. The only one I see is you'll lose the adjacent slot, but that's rarely used these days.

Make sure you read all of the reviews. Go to google and search Arctic Cooling vga silencer review. You'll get like 10 or so reviews. I don't trust reviews where the item reviewed is sent on behalf of a store.

Thanks go out to my friend Rodney over at the very popular Silicon Valley Compucycle (SVC) site where many of us get our mod supplies.

Just like Jeff pointed out, "No Cons"...I'm sorry but EVERYTHING has a Con, and some of those reviews on google say that they expected more out of it.


It's still a nice cooler for $22.

True, true. From what I've read the biggest two mentioned cons, which aren't that big in the grand scheme of things, is the fan speed switch position can prevent smooth installation but it can be fixed by unscrewing the switch before installing the slot, then screwing it back in IIRC. The second is the cooling capacity isn't that impressive but for moderate overclocking and quiet operation it is great.