The 5800 series aftermarket cooling thread.

[poohbear]

hello, found this thread after a google search.. its quite an old thread but wanna know the current state of 5870 aftermarket cooling. Is cooling the VRMs still a big issue with the aftermarket coolers?

Debating which one to get for my 5870, and i love the arctic cooling ones for their slience and awesome GPU cooling, but all the stories of the VRM & RAM sinks falling off are'nt encouraging.

Has anything changed in the aftermarket cooling landscape? Thanks in advance!

 

[velis]

Usually the cooler description will tell you if it covers the VRMs or not. Otherwise a bit of googleing the forums will also turn up all the info you need for your chosen heatsink. You really need to do research on aftermarket coolers. Lots of solutions on offer, but some are not exactly what one would call good.
Anyway, Newegg even has a filter on chip vs chip + memory for gfx card heatsinks to make your search easier. Though the numer of results is surprisingly low. I don't believe all other heatsinks are GPU only.

 

[tulx]

Yes, except what you fail to realize is that if I had bought a 5870, I would still have been pissed about the noisy cooler and replaced it too.

Don't you have bat ears or something? I have two of those in my PC and really can't complain about excessive noise. The case is well ventilated - a Silverstone Fortress 2. And though being audible, the cards never produce a noise I'd deem "loud".
Actually - do aftermarket video card coolers provide the same difference as aftermarker CPU coolers? I read an article over on Tom's once (I think it was there) and the temperature difference between a stock and aftermarket cooler (air) was negligable - definitely not justifying the price and hassle, in my opinion.
Anyway - my to XFX 5870 cards using the stock cooler (very similar or identical to the reference cooler) seem to be working great. In addition, I do not like the open design which most aftermarket coolers use - they heat up the case interrior and other components much more than the closed coolers.

 

[poohbear]

well my 5870 gets loud above 30%, especiallly since the rest of my case is silent (my frio is 1400rpm on the fan).

i read that all of the aftermarket coolers have terrible VRM cooling, only option was to get the thermalright VR-5 with another cooler, but that's almost $100 for both, all that just for aftermarket cooling.

 

[KingFatty]

well my 5870 gets loud above 30%, especiallly since the rest of my case is silent (my frio is 1400rpm on the fan).

i read that all of the aftermarket coolers have terrible VRM cooling, only option was to get the thermalright VR-5 with another cooler, but that's almost $100 for both, all that just for aftermarket cooling.

What about using a hacksaw or dremel to separate the rear/end portion of the stock 5870 baseplate, along with a portion of the front/end, then attaching them to keep the VRMs cool? The 5850 doesn't need any mods to the baseplate because the heatsink is separate, but the 5870 heatsink is welded to the baseplate so maybe you can get away with cutting the heatsink away from the front and back ends of the baseplate? The pieces should screw back on in a way that they give good pressure/contact between each piece and the underlying VRMs.

 

[poohbear]

thanks but i'd rather not risk any mods that might short circuit something if it doesn't fit. i read the Zalman V3000A VRM heatsink has bricked alot of cards because of that, it didnt fit tightly enough or was touching a transistor or something. Whatever it was, it had a high rate of bricking 5870s. That's certainly not why i'd be buying an aftermarket cooler!!!!!:0

 

[KingFatty]

Yes the idea is to re-use the existing stock baseplate to keep the VRMs cool, as it's your safest bet it seems. But I guess if you put an aftermarket cooler on the GPU, then I suppose there is a risk there, but at least the GPU seems to be more protected/robust than the VRMs and their tiny exposed resistors etc.

 

[monkeydelmagico]

Pooh, other than some expensive water cooling solutions nothing that I am aware of has changed for 5870 cooling. I too got annoyed at the high noise level of a reference design ati 5870. Larger air cooler were out for me because they cover three slots. Here is what I did to be able to run 10-15 celcius cooler:

I took it apart and used good thermal tape on VRM's and artic silver on the GPU.

Then I installed a low rpm case fan blowing directly at the fan on the card.

Finally I used MSI afterburner to set up a fan delta that does 10% fan up to 55 celcius, then 30% up to 75 celcius.

So far, it has stayed below 75. 30% fan, on my card, is a noise level I can live with.

 

[Kenmitch]

Purchase this shortly after I got my 5850. Allows my card to run at 1000/1300 with fully loaded temps at less than most other solutions idle. Got a good deal on it used at the time

 

[KingFatty]

I took it apart and used good thermal tape on VRM's and artic silver on the GPU.

Do you have more details on the thermal tape? Such as, Brand, where did you get it, the thickness or other sizes, etc.?

I saw some thermal tapes at http://www.frozencpu.com/, but wasn't sure which would be best for a 5850.

Also, the various tapes have different ratings for heat transfer, so I could see how you might be at a disadvantage if you got a tape that was thicker than necessary, and would want the thinnest tape possible without being too thin to ensure good contact/pressure. Is 0.5mm the best, or 1.0/1.5?

 

[monkeydelmagico]

I used some 3M tape that I had laying around. Sorry, I don't know the thickness. When comparing it looked the same as what came on the board stock. Instead of putting a big strip of tape on the heatsink I put very small squares on the VRM's. I did that in case the thickness was not quite right I wouldn't get a bunch of overlap or risk insulating the VRM's. Seems to have worked as well because when I tested and monitored the VRM temps in GPU-Z they also went down......by more than the decrease for the GPU itself!

I think the biggest and easiest improvment was from mounting the case fan to blow directly on the GPU intake though.