Radeon 9700 PRO cooling. Crystal Orb and Copper RAMsinks or Zalman Heatpipe?

[Jeff7]

I had bought a box of assorted aluminum heatsinks on eBay awhile back - 486 and Pentium coolers; I also bought a metal-cutting blade for my bandsaw. If I need ramsinks, I sort through the assortment, find some decent ones, slice them to size, Dremel the edges smooth, and attach them to the RAM with some epoxy on the corners and Arctic Silver II in the middle of the chip. They seem to work quite well, and they're a LOT cheaper than the snazzy things that are like $10 for 4 tiny heatsinks.

 

[Metalloid]

Originally posted by: Jeff7
I had bought a box of assorted aluminum heatsinks on eBay awhile back - 486 and Pentium coolers; I also bought a metal-cutting blade for my bandsaw. If I need ramsinks, I sort through the assortment, find some decent ones, slice them to size, Dremel the edges smooth, and attach them to the RAM with some epoxy on the corners and Arctic Silver II in the middle of the chip. They seem to work quite well, and they're a LOT cheaper than the snazzy things that are like $10 for 4 tiny heatsinks.

Like This?

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Metalloid15

Originally posted by: Jeff7
I had bought a box of assorted aluminum heatsinks on eBay awhile back - 486 and Pentium coolers; I also bought a metal-cutting blade for my bandsaw. If I need ramsinks, I sort through the assortment, find some decent ones, slice them to size, Dremel the edges smooth, and attach them to the RAM with some epoxy on the corners and Arctic Silver II in the middle of the chip. They seem to work quite well, and they're a LOT cheaper than the snazzy things that are like $10 for 4 tiny heatsinks.

Like This?

Well, not QUITE like that.
Although, if you stuck some of those to the outside of your case, that might reduce temps by a fraction of a degree. My god, 23 pounds EACH. Imagine if those were copper...

 

[Metalloid]

Originally posted by: Jeff7

Originally posted by: Metalloid15

Originally posted by: Jeff7
I had bought a box of assorted aluminum heatsinks on eBay awhile back - 486 and Pentium coolers; I also bought a metal-cutting blade for my bandsaw. If I need ramsinks, I sort through the assortment, find some decent ones, slice them to size, Dremel the edges smooth, and attach them to the RAM with some epoxy on the corners and Arctic Silver II in the middle of the chip. They seem to work quite well, and they're a LOT cheaper than the snazzy things that are like $10 for 4 tiny heatsinks.

Like This?

Well, not QUITE like that.
Although, if you stuck some of those to the outside of your case, that might reduce temps by a fraction of a degree. My god, 23 pounds EACH. Imagine if those were copper...

I was thinking about buying them and then cutting them into individual heatsinks. Overkill I know.

 

[mrzed]

Thought you might be interested in this thread that I just started today.

Basically a different take on silent GPU cooling. I like the idea.

 

[Goi]

I'm not sure how good the Crystal Orbs are, I've never been convinced that they are good performers. As for the Zalman Heatpipes, they perform marginally worse than the stock ATI 9700 Pro cooler AFAIK. Add a fan and it'll probably perform a bit better.

From a pure performance standpoint, have you thought about modding a 1U CPU cooler as a GPU cooler? I modded a Cooljag 1U cooler on my Radeon 9700 Pro, and added a couple of small cheap RAMsinks. Check out the pictures here and here

 

[Soulkeeper]

I took a crystal orb and put a bigger fan in it from one of those old orb athlon coolers
those things are great

that zalman thing is too big and doesn't really cool any better

 

[Metalloid]

Originally posted by: Goi
I'm not sure how good the Crystal Orbs are, I've never been convinced that they are good performers. As for the Zalman Heatpipes, they perform marginally worse than the stock ATI 9700 Pro cooler AFAIK. Add a fan and it'll probably perform a bit better.

From a pure performance standpoint, have you thought about modding a 1U CPU cooler as a GPU cooler? I modded a Cooljag 1U cooler on my Radeon 9700 Pro, and added a couple of small cheap RAMsinks. Check out the pictures here and here

What needs to be done to the 1U to make it work?

 

[Goi]

Well, you have to drill 2 holes to align it with the card's mounting holes. Also, in the case of the 9700 Pro, you'll either have to remove the shim, grind/drill/sand down a portion of the heatsink, or live with the fact that there's no direct contact between the heatsink and the core, and fill up the small gap with thermal grease.

After the drilling its just a matter of attaching the 2 together with 2 screws, nuts and washers.

 

[Metalloid]

I was planning on removing the shim anyways, as I have heard that it provides better performance. Because it is attached with screws, I don't need to use epoxy or anything right? I can just use AS3?

 

[Goi]

Well if you attach the cooler with screws, you won't need epoxy, normal thermal grease such as AS3 will work.

However, if you're lazy to drill holes, then you can use thermal epoxy. Make sure the epoxy is strong enough though, I'm not sure how well they hold. 1U coolers are considerably heavier than all other GPU coolers, especially copper ones like the Cooljag.

 

[Jeff7]

So that works, just the two screws? I had modded my GF4 Ti4200 to use a 1U copper heatsink, but they conveniently have 4 holes around the outside of the GPU - made attaching the heatsink rather easy, and it was very sturdy. With only two screws, I'd be worried about it rocking, especially if the shim is gone.

 

[Metalloid]

Goi, can you point me to an effective 1U cooler, preferrably at a good price?

 

[Metalloid]

^

 

[Goi]

I'm using a Cooljag one, but Thermaltake, Coolermaster and Alpha also have 1U coolers.Its just that only the Cooljag was available at my area so I chose that, besides the reviews were pretty glowing as well. Shop around if you're interested. Google is your friend here