The 5800 series aftermarket cooling thread.

[konakona]

I dug up some pics on google as to how S1 rev2 looks with a 120mm fan on it:
http://www.overclock.net/attachment...accelero-s1-fan-mod-lots-dsc01154-medium-.jpg
http://media.photobucket.com/image/...michwhyte/s1 rev 2 120mm 4870/05022009178.jpg
http://xtreview.com/images/GeForce-8800-GT-vs-GTS-vs-AMD-Radeon-HD-3850-vs-3870/8800 gt with as1.jpg
http://img.techpowerup.org/071118/Photo_110807_001.jpg

Looks a lot cleaner than I expected aesthetically speaking plus the fan covers the entire height of the heastsink. With the bigger size and all, I think S1 with a decent fan should be at least as good as TT pro. Just gotta make sure it fits on 5850 with that minimal modification of bending or clipping a few rows of pins...

 

[MagickMan]

Not sure about real-world gaming but the last time I benchmarked it at about 940/1300 with 3DMark Vantage it was pretty darn close to a stock 5870. Vantage probably leverages those extra shaders, though.

@1050 my 5850 slaughters a stock 5870, though can only do that at 1.27v and the VRMs get pretty warm under Furmark or OCCT. For regular gaming and benchmarking, however, it runs just fine. A more quiet cooler would be nice, but I really don't pay much attention to the stock fan while playing.

 

[The Sauce]

I have been able to get Furmark stable as follows:

965 @ 1.150v
980 @ 1.175v
990 @ 1.200v

My temps are fine but it does not look like I am getting great returns by pushing up the voltage any further. I can get nice and stable just running Heaven much higher but Furmark pounds it into submission in no time. I was running Heaven at 1000 @ 1.175 for hours with no issues. Furmark crashed out in a minute or two. Guess I'll just leave it at 965 since this seems to be the sweet spot. GPU and VRMs don't get hotter than low 70's Furmark at those settings.

 

[konakona]

hmmm... I went to the actic cooling homepage and compared their specs / pics

S1 rev2
138(L) x 215(W) x 33(H) mm
268 g
32 rows of fins

Twin Turbo Pro
213 L x 115 W x 49 H mm
446g
35 rows of fins

Obviously, the height and the weight are boosted by the fans. So assuming the actual heatsink heights are identical, TT Pro has longer and more densely populated fins.

surface area
S1 rev2: 33mm*213mm*35*2=0.49203
TT Pro: 33mm*138mm*32*2=0.291456

With a S1 rev2 I guess you could push more air with a 120mm fan, but TT Pro seems better as a heatsink by itself. I guess that's what I will be getting then

ended up getting a TT Pro for $41.12 from ebay after BCB

 

[Dorkenstein]

If I was to get a reference 5870, could I use the TT Pro without needing to actively cool the VRM's if I'm not going to OC? Thanks.

 

[sxr7171]

You mean the Thermalright R3 and R4? I was wondering about that. Looks like it gets tricky. I think Thermalright recommends getting one of those as well which means about $75-$85 for cooling. That's a bit steep. The whole memory/VRM cooling thing is what makes this tricky. Wish there was a good guide out there.

Yes but still cheaper than the Vapor-X or the MSI one (forgot its name). I like the MSI due to its other optimizations like 15 phase power etc. But really even if it nets 100Mhz extra what does that translate to where it's needed like say in Crysis? Will 28FPS become 31FPS? If so should I care? But would it keep my minimum FPS above 25FPS? Would it make it more stable?

I guess quietness and/or increased performance comes at a high price.

 

[cbn]

Does the ASUS Voltage Tweak HD5850 come with a stock reference ( 2 heat pipe) cooler?

 

[cbn]

I just got a 5850 for my bro and he's also complaining about fan noises.

I can't wait for ATI to offered "synchronized GPUs" via sideport (or whatever other tech) for future generation cards.

I can only imagine two HD5770s in Crossfire would be quieter than one HD5850. (Two Video card fans at slow speed > One video card fan at greater speeds)

 

[sxr7171]

While doing some research I learned that Prolimatech offers a solution to the VRM issue:

http://www.prolimatech.com/products/vga_cooler/mk-13.html

Watch the installation video. I don't know how effective that heatsink is but I think it should be fine.

It also offers enough space for a VRM-4 or VRM-5 for those who prefer to be sure.

 

[konakona]

I had a feeling that VRM cooler didn't look large enough to handle all the heat, and this confirms my suspicion: http://www.legionhardware.com/articles_pages/prolimatech_mk_13,3.html

looks like a beast, should probably perform well (at $70 MSRP it better), but got some mounting problems and VRM isn't cooled well at all. Not sure if it can be used with the stock heatplate. Too rich for my blood either way

 

[The Sauce]

While doing some research I learned that Prolimatech offers a solution to the VRM issue:

http://www.prolimatech.com/products/vga_cooler/mk-13.html

Watch the installation video. I don't know how effective that heatsink is but I think it should be fine.

It also offers enough space for a VRM-4 or VRM-5 for those who prefer to be sure.

That is a poor VRM solution. They use essentially a large ramsink on the VRMs. I tried that before I got the R4 and it didn't work at all. VRM temps hit >120 and crashed at lower speeds than stock cooling. If you use that thing you should just use it with the stock baseplate to cool the VRMs...or try it with an R4, but then the price is really, really high.

I have expermineted with cooling the 5850 quite a bit and have concluded that VRM cooling is the key to overclocking. Once I got the VRMs cool I was able to push up clocks with lower voltages. The R4 does a good job if you toss the TIM strip that comes with it and just use paste on the VRMs. T-Rad2 + R4 will run you about $65 if you choose to go that way. Otherwise just use the stock plate to cool the VRMs.

 

[konakona]

Hey guys, I think I could use some help here. I cut off those 11 fins that conflict with the DVI shroud, but the GPU wouldn't sit flush with the Twin Turbo Pro. There isn't any trace of thermal grease on the GPU after my best effort to bring them into contact. What gives?

Are you supposed to be using those rubber spacers? From the looks of it, the heatpipes seem to be touching the metallic backplate from the original cooler

EDIT: put those spacers in, screwed it in pretty tight, took it apart again. only about a half of the chip had the TIM on it (the half further away from the heatpipes). The heatsink sat slanted with the heatpipe side pointing up.

EDIT2: After a few attempts to bend the heatpipes by hand in between putting it together and taking it apart, I think I finally got it to sit flush on the GPU. Haven't got around to do any overclocking, but stays at 35C at idle and plateaus out at around 65C in furmark (not the burning mode, mind you). Dead silent to boot, not bad eh? 68-69C with xtreme burning mode on.

 

[konakona]

I just tried 900/1200 1.87v vcore, and the temps kept going up past 84 and the computer crashed. Looking at bradyapba' pic again, I think mine sits in a lot more slanted angle if memory serves right. I guess I will have to go at it again

bradyapba, I have tracked your posts at scpr / xtremesystems / overclock.net and figures there is always that somebody that would claim the heatplate was hitting the heatpipes. My guess is that might be a vendor specific thing. Bending the heatpipes upward helps, but I am just not there yet. The second heatpipe from the longer end in the middle has a steeper angle to the cooler surface and is a b*tch to bend. Might need some pliers to do the trick, we will see how that goes tonight.

 

[konakona]

uh oh, this is bad.

After yet another attempt to bend the heatpipes, the monitor would not pick up any signal from any of the inputs on the 5850 (1 HDMI and two DVIs). Took it apart, put it back together and did it again - same thing. Reseting CMOS didn't work, but a spare video card worked. Tried it yet another time and nothing has changed. I don't remember abusing the 5850 at any time, other than perhaps tightening those screws a bit more than usual. That wasn't like crazy tight either, as it was easily unscrewable by hand. Hope I just didn't turn it into a $275 brick

In retrospect, it could have been the infamous furmark

Looks like I will have to dig up warranty information (after a whole three days of fiddling with it, lol). The bad part is, I broke one of the legs of the red fan thingy. The screw was broken and I had to pry it off of the backplate. Am I SOL? Still can't think of anything other than furmark. Strange how bad things happen even at 84C...

 

[Soubriquet]

FYI Arctic Cooling support said that AC Accelero Xtreme 5870 is due approx six weeks after 29/4/10 ie approx Jun 10th.

 

[konakona]

Got the card back, seems to be working fine thusfar.

Extreme burning mode in furmark gave me
stock cooler: 755/1125 85.0 93.0 90.5
TTP: 755/1125 56.5 59.0 64.0
I think the three numbers correspond to GPU / VRM / RAM respectively (could be wrong).

Did some OC'ing at stock volts
825/1250 71.0 74.0 78.5

The fan is plugged into the card via 4 pin connector, not sure if it auto adjusts. RPM readings from the sensors are all messed up as expected (2 fans instead of 1, duh). How do we go about auto adjusting it again? Does Afterburner fan control when the fans are connected in this way? If it is fixed at a certain value, I wonder at what voltage; it sure seems a good bit quieter than at the fans running at 12v.

BTW, if game periodically freezes for a few seconds and then resumes without locking up, is it more likely be too high core or too high mem?

 

[MrK6]

BTW, if game periodically freezes for a few seconds and then resumes without locking up, is it more likely be too high core or too high mem?

It could be either. It's probably the RAM error correcting, but test thoroughly.

 

[konakona]

yeah I noticed that happened with my 4890 in oblivion when I had my core a bit too high. On this 5850, that happened in BFBC2 with ram at 1280 but not at 1250.

I think the VRM temps are really holding me back.. I have mistakenly thought that one of the GPU temps quoted was for the VRM, but looks like VDDC Phase temp (3 of them) is for the VRM, correct?

With the furmark extreme burning mode, the stock gave me 94/95/92. TTP gives me 90/93/90, which seems fair (more or less the same except slightly less heat load from the GPU) I think it's really holding me back, at 900/1260 VRM temps went over 120C

Could it be bad contact? One thing I noticed was the white TIM on one tiny chip that's separated from the rest (not the row of VRMs) was all smeared up, and I had to attempt the best I can to put that together. Is that normal? It wouldn't have mattered, I thought, cuz even then the distance between the heatplate and the card itself is much shorter than the crumpled pieces of that stuff.

Anyway, BFBC2 was fine for hours doing 900/1250@1.125v when the furmark would eventually crash at the same settings. The VRM temps do look a bit high though, even for the stock cooler.

EDIT: took out the card shortly after another donutfest, found out the heatplate was getting quite hot. Maybe it's just that I need a bit more airflow over the card. When I look at the card from the front (the side opposite to the bracket) the heatsink sits a bit slanted to the left, away from the side with the heatpipes. Is that normal? I initially had some problem with the heatpipes colliding with the heatplate and had to bend them up a bit. Maybe I should go back at it and do some more?

 

[tweakboy]

That is a good video card. But don't bottleneck it... thx gl,

 

[Kenmitch]

Water cooling although pricey works very nice on these cards. Just something about running something like Heaven 2 benchmark and seeing all your temps in the 30's that makes it worth it....Specs in sig although my CPU was at only 4ghz! CPU 32* GPU 34* v-regs 36-38*

 

[konakona]

I ended up putting a undervolted yate loon right in front of the card (on the PCI-e connector side). GPU temps stayed the same, but the VDDC went from 90-93 to 82-80, a good bit of improvement Woulda been even better with a gentletyphoon, but I just don't have any more of those

 

[konakona]

About 2 syringes worth of ceramique was applied on VRMs and VRAM modules.
The fan shroud was removed and replaced by 2 120mm fans ziptied onto the bare heatsink.
I have no idea how I got it messed up in the head, but S1 rev2 indeed has more surface area. Must have been drunk or something when I posted a comparison and drew conclusion from it

The results

GPU temps are quite good I think, VRMs not so much. Very slight improvement over the white stuff that came with the stock heatplate. Airflow must have been improved quite a lot, so it's got to be bad contact beetween the heatplate and the VRMs.

EDIT: oops, I forgot to check off extreme burning mode... things are looking worse with that on

 

[konakona]

This is with another fan sitting on top doing extreme burning mode

I don't get it, do some VRMs tend to get hotter than others? I am not doing a crazy high overclock or anything, my voltage is on the lowish side. Yet my VRM temps are much higher than what other people are getting. Can't be poor airflow, got 120mm fans on it and core temp look fine to me.. Poor contact with the heatplate maybe? The heatplate seemed to get pretty hot, but that could have been just the memory chips.

 

[MagickMan]

Got my T-Rad2 kit and VRM-R3 installed on my 5850, and load temps on my core @1050 are ~3-4C lower and VRM temps are about the same (I'm using a low RPM 80mm on the VRM-R3 and a 1400RPM Scythe GT on my T-Rad2. That's nice and all, but what's amazing is that I can't hear my video card anymore! This machine is cranking at full load and it's as quiet as it is at idle. Great stuff.

I don't get it, do some VRMs tend to get hotter than others? I am not doing a crazy high overclock or anything, my voltage is on the lowish side. Yet my VRM temps are much higher than what other people are getting. Can't be poor airflow, got 120mm fans on it and core temp look fine to me.. Poor contact with the heatplate maybe? The heatplate seemed to get pretty hot, but that could have been just the memory chips.

Yes, some do get hotter than others, but that's a huge swing. Hottest I've seen mine is 92ish, and that's at my max OC with Kombustor. I hear they're fine up to 120C, but I think that's when throttling happens. Try reseating the plate.

 

[konakona]

what exactly are the three temps quoted for the GPU anyway?
I am guessing the three correspond to core, shader and memory (probably not in that exact order)