Removing Peltier/TEC on GeCube X1950XT-X AGP

[Aeros]

The Problem with the cooling is the pelt placement and the insufficent cooling for the pelt.

If you take a look, the pelt is sandwiched between two plates with heatpipes below and above. The reason for the heatpipes below is to cool the gpu when the pelt is not running and to prevent the GPU from getting below dew point (will never happen) and forming condesate. The upper set cools the Pelt.

Each set of heatpipes is cooled by one of the two sets of HSF, and only the fan cooling the heatpies under the Pelt is speed controlled. The other fan runs 100% all the time to cool the Pelt which only runs under load.

So only half the cooling unit is ever working to cool the pelt. The power draw alone would be reason (to mention it's not very efficient) to take the unit off .

If you remove the cooling unit you will reduce the load from the card, if you use a molex to connect the fan to your PSU it will drop the power requirements even more. Still 350W might not be enough. You can test it thouhg if you have a software voltage monitor like Asus Probe. If your 12v line waivers too low you should upgrade.

You can use the cooler without the Pelt, but you would only be using half of it, the other fan would be cooling empty space. So better to remove the whole mess. It's too big anyway.

Concerning the Voltage Regulator; it does get hot. Hot enough to cause concern? I dont know. But I stuck a spare ramsink on it to be sure. Used AS5 as my thermo-adhesive, also use AS5 to stick all my ramsinks on all my cards, won't fall off and has to be a better conducter then foam sticky tape.


3DMark06 Score 4398

SM 2.0 Score 2127 Marks

SM 3.0 Score 2418 Marks

CPU Score 772 Marks

peak GPU temp 77c

 

[ProjectIcarus]

Originally posted by: Aeros
The Problem with the cooling is the pelt placement and the insufficent cooling for the pelt.

If you take a look, the pelt is sandwiched between two plates with heatpipes below and above. The reason for the heatpipes below is to cool the gpu when the pelt is not running and to prevent the GPU from getting below dew point (will never happen) and forming condesate. The upper set cools the Pelt.

Each set of heatpipes is cooled by one of the two sets of HSF, and only the fan cooling the heatpies under the Pelt is speed controlled. The other fan runs 100% all the time to cool the Pelt which only runs under load.

So only half the cooling unit is ever working to cool the pelt. The power draw alone would be reason (to mention it's not very efficient) to take the unit off .

If you remove the cooling unit you will reduce the load from the card, if you use a molex to connect the fan to your PSU it will drop the power requirements even more. Still 350W might not be enough. You can test it thouhg if you have a software voltage monitor like Asus Probe. If your 12v line waivers too low you should upgrade.

You can use the cooler without the Pelt, but you would only be using half of it, the other fan would be cooling empty space. So better to remove the whole mess. It's too big anyway.

Concerning the Voltage Regulator; it does get hot. Hot enough to cause concern? I dont know. But I stuck a spare ramsink on it to be sure. Used AS5 as my thermo-adhesive, also use AS5 to stick all my ramsinks on all my cards, won't fall off and has to be a better conducter then foam sticky tape.


3DMark06 Score 4398

SM 2.0 Score 2127 Marks

SM 3.0 Score 2418 Marks

CPU Score 772 Marks

peak GPU temp 77c

Judging by your photo, I am under the impression that both the pelt and the GPU is cooled by one cooling block assembly, and when the pelt is added, I assume an added 50W or so of heat is placed onto the block, adding burden to it.

I plan to test it first with the pelt on, and if my machine can't drive it, I am going to take the pelt off.

 

[ProjectIcarus]

Appearently my card was stolen during shipping.... (everything's there, except the CARD!), looks like I gonna have to talk with newegg....

 

[evolucion8]

Damn, that's very infortunate. Hope you're able to solve it soon!!! :shocked:

 

[Aeros]

This cards seems cursed in a way. Mayby Gecube just didn't put one in the box. Was the box still sealed? Mine was roughed up, but atleast it was there.

Odd enough my card artifacts at idle temps and doesnt settle down till mid 60's.

New overclock reached GPU-681.75 vRam-1620. Have not tried anything higher, but I get no artifacts at these clocks and complete 3DMark 06 without a hitch. So I know I have room to grow.

Intel Pentium 4 EE @ 3732 MHz

3DMark Score 4514

SM 2.0 Score 2155 Marks

SM 3.0 Score 2454 Marks

CPU Score 811 Marks

 

[evolucion8]

And which are the GPU temperatures when Idle and when in full load? Mines idles at 54C and the GPU Ambient Temperature gets pretty much the same, 55C. In full load, the GPU ambient temperature can reach up to 65C and the GPU temp can be as high as 70C average, sometimes may spike up to 74C but quickly goes down back to 70C and where I live the temperature is typical between 78F to 92F.

 

[Aeros]

GPU@681.75 vRam@810

Idle temp @ 42c

Full load under ATI Tool @ 80c

room temp is at ~23c

Temp chip reads 27c idle and maxes at 37c

 

[evolucion8]

I score about 4482 in 3DMark06. It seems a bit low to me, seems that I'm CPU limited. Once I order a faster RAM, I'll overclock this CPU. Currently it can reach 3.73GHz, but using 5:4 FSB Ratio which hampers the RAM bandwidth.

 

[Aeros]

Since the divider is so high with these EE's you don't really need faster RAM, unless you want to run 1:1 @ 4.5 Ghz. The only way I will replace my RAM with faster is if I can get a phase change to get the CPU that high.

Since I know my generic Kingston can go to 235 (4Ghz @ 1:1) FSB I'm not going to buy any more old hardware, everything I buy for this rig will be useable in a new build. thinking about getting better cooling for the CPU and GPU. Checking out some water kits (damn exspensive!) or mayby a phase change since it would only be a few 100 more and do the job better with the added advantage that I can migrate it to any future upgrade.

But then again If I DO get a phase change I will definatly find some DDR533...You know...For prosperities sake

Manyby relax the timings on your ram I run 2-3-3-7 @ 219.28 FSB (10% OC) you can set your timing in windows with Twak865 http://www.cpuid.org/download/Tw865.zip

 

[Paratus]

4482?

Damn my X1950PRO 512 AGP and P4 3.2E at 3.6 get 4328 in 3Dm06. I guess the XT and the EE don't make that much difference.

Let us know if the extra ram speed helps. Judging from my scores it does.

 

[Stumps]

Originally posted by: Paratus
4482?

Damn my X1950PRO 512 AGP and P4 3.2E at 3.6 get 4328 in 3Dm06. I guess the XT and the EE don't make that much difference.

Let us know if the extra ram speed helps. Judging from my scores it does.

I got 5000 flat from my A64@2.87Ghz skt 754 and X1950Pro, CPU wise it wasn't much faster than a 3.8ghz P4EE.

 

[evolucion8]

I want to overclock at 1:1 so that will not sacrifice bandwidth. I saw some benchmarks with this chipset and DDR500 and I can see that the memory allows to run near it's theorical maximum bandwidth of 6.4GB/s, even though the DDR400 is supposed to fulfill that spec, is nowhere near from it, my ultra low latency RAM doesn't exceeds the 6GB/s threshold, it runs between 5.6-5.9GB/s. In 3DMark05 it scores only 7,754 which seems also low to me. Probably I need better RAM and being able to overclock the CPU. In games the difference is quite noticeable but in the benchmarks is not in the wow factor. I'm using ATi Tray Tool cause Catalyst Control Center is sluggish for my tastes and for some reason, using ATi Tray Tool always lowers the final score a bit. Seems that the CLI and MOM background programs in the Catalyst Control Center do something more than wasting memory, does it optimize the performance of the card?

 

[ProjectIcarus]

well, someone stole my card. They cut open the box and took it away, and it happened between manufacture and new egg, because shipping container was sealed.

Anyway, I gonna rma it, and also, Aeros, how are you cooling your card? I think the heat sink is adequate (it's huge!), I just gonna take down the pelt and force both fan to run at full speed.

 

[evolucion8]

Wow, how infortunate is that situation. About the size of the cooling system, is huge, I had to move my sound card and TV Tuner down to the last PCI cause it takes away 1 PCI slot and the second one is barely usable, I don't use it for cooling efficiency. The cooling system looks like a hard drive sticked in the videocard, and is even bulkier than a regular hard drive!!! Even though is big and hot, considering that here today the temperature is around the 90C with 90% of humidity (That's hot) In full load it's always in 70C and rarely reaches 74C and then goes back, and idles in 53C while the GPU ambient idles in 67C and in full load stays on 70C.

 

[Aeros]

Im using a Zalman vf700;no heatpipes just exstruded copper fins. And It works better then the ridiculous GeCube setup. Wanna' get the VF1000 when it comes out, or water cooling for this though.

If you remove the Pelt you might as well turn off the fan closest to the DVI connect because it will be cooling empty space. So you might as well get an aftermarket cooler.

I use ATI Tool for my overclocking needs, has a much simpler interface and less of a memory footprint then Tray tools and definatly better then CCC...but what isn't?

I get 5.76 GB/s read bandwith with my Ram @ 220 FSB (DDR439) And i have headroom still. I know this ram can do 235 FSB @ 1:1, but if it craps out I'll snag some DDR500 or better. Only problem though AFAIK you lose PAT if you manually set the mem speeds in the BIOS, and all the DDR I have looked at are manually set in bios. But at 4Ghz + I wonder if PAT even matters.

 

[Aeros]

Ok so I have been testing the pelt with an old power supply...Which has given me the idea of reapplying the pelt but with direct contact to the GPU.

That or on my CPU till I get a better cooler for my VGA.

I will have to modify some stuff hehe...be back with some results.

 

[ProjectIcarus]

Originally posted by: Aeros
Im using a Zalman vf700;no heatpipes just exstruded copper fins. And It works better then the ridiculous GeCube setup. Wanna' get the VF1000 when it comes out, or water cooling for this though.

If you remove the Pelt you might as well turn off the fan closest to the DVI connect because it will be cooling empty space. So you might as well get an aftermarket cooler.

I use ATI Tool for my overclocking needs, has a much simpler interface and less of a memory footprint then Tray tools and definatly better then CCC...but what isn't?

I get 5.76 GB/s read bandwith with my Ram @ 220 FSB (DDR439) And i have headroom still. I know this ram can do 235 FSB @ 1:1, but if it craps out I'll snag some DDR500 or better. Only problem though AFAIK you lose PAT if you manually set the mem speeds in the BIOS, and all the DDR I have looked at are manually set in bios. But at 4Ghz + I wonder if PAT even matters.

I am under the impression that both fans cool the heatsink, and frankly, that seems no fan is cooling empty space.

Also, the thing about pelt, it's not something that you imput power and remove heat, it's a HEATPIPE, that means, the heat is still there (even more, due to inefficency), and that heat still ends up going to the heat sink.

 

[Aeros]

There are two heat sinks. One to cool the GPU and the other to cool the Pelt...Sandwich

Here is a link to a review of the cooler used on this card.
http://www.guru3d.com/article/content/396/1/

You can see in their photos the two sets of heatpipes. Plus why would I lie about this?

If you remove the pelt your one set of HS/Fan will cool empty space since there is no contact on the surface of that HS, just a gap where the pelt used to be. So if your going to remove the pelt, take the whole second HSF/Heatpipe assembly off. You can still use the primary one.

Ok I sandwiched the MACS pelt between my CPU and the Zalman CNPS5000. First result was: AI Booster loaded on startup with my previous clocks and the system crashed.

After loading default clocks I get an idle temp of 0c? prob lower but software monitors can't go sub 0...however, under load it jumps to 60c and stays.

So the pelt works...but it cant dissapate the heat from my CPU on air, and if it cannot handle that then, there is no way it can handle a GPU with a far smaller HSF.

Read the above review they come to the same conclusion.

You would need a much higher rated Pelt/TEC to absorb the heat from the x1950xt and a monsterous cooler to cool the Pelt.

 

[ProjectIcarus]

Some updates:

I've recieved the RMAed card today. This card seem to bring bad luck. My new 500W PSU turned out to be Dead ON Arrival, and my old 7600GS is unexplictably broken, but the GeCube prevailed, on the 350W PSU!

My system cannot drive the card with pelt installed, however, without the pelt, it's very stable (stock clock, 350W PSU), GPU does not rise above 65C under heavy gaming.