Thermaltake DuOrb and ATi HD4870

[AndroidVageta]

Got a Thermaltake DuOrb cooler today for my HD4870 512MB and I would just like to here opinions on it.

Heatsink in question

I'm pretty sure its all installed correctly, but when playing Crysis at max settings OCCT reads my GPU at almost 90C!

Is the DuOrb not up to the challenge for cooling my HD4870 or am I missing something? I used Arctic Silver 5 for the thermal paste.

 

[zagood]

How are you controlling the fan? Try running it at 100%.

 

[mwmorph]

Originally posted by: zagood
How are you controlling the fan? Try running it at 100%.

The Duo-orb is 1 speed only, connects directly to a molex.

Try reseating it. I have it on a X1950GT overclocked and it barely even gets warm to the touch idle and not much warmer at full load (temps are like 32*/42*), not the same as a 4870 but it should be up to he task considering that the X1950 isnt a low power card.

One easy way to tell is touch the cooler while stressed, if it feels like it's 90*C, it's installed correctly, if it is much cooler, the contact with the gpu is off.

 

[error8]

It's probably not seated right. What are you using for VRM cooling? You do know that 4870 has extremely hot VRM chips that need big heatsinks to be cooled, not those little ram sinks that comes with any aftermarket cooler. Otherwise, they'll just ovearheat, crash your card and probably reduce your overclock. So even if you reseat it right, you only fix half a problem.

 

[AndroidVageta]

Originally posted by: error8
It's probably not seated right. What are you using for VRM cooling? You do know that 4870 has extremely hot VRM chips that need big heatsinks to be cooled, not those little ram sinks that comes with any aftermarket cooler. Otherwise, they'll just ovearheat, crash your card and probably reduce your overclock. So even if you reseat it right, you only fix half a problem.

I have to agree with you. Maybe I had it seated wrong, but in either case I only had the tiny thin little heat sinks on the VRM chips...which in the long run I don't think would have worked...oh well, stock worked fine, just wanted something a little flashier...I just put the DuOrb on my HTPC's 8800GS...at least it got a home

 

[Binky]

If you have the room for it, an accelero S1 works amazingly well. Attach a 120mm fan of your choice with zipties, tape, rubber bands, or old shoelaces, and the thing will cool anything.

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: Binky
If you have the room for it, an accelero S1 works amazingly well. Attach a 120mm fan of your choice with zipties, tape, rubber bands, or old shoelaces, and the thing will cool anything.

And have 120+ C on the VRMs. Great choice!

 

[Binky]

Ummm, the accelero comes with ramsinks, and I suggested a fan. What did you miss?

 

[Modular]

Originally posted by: Binky
Ummm, the accelero comes with ramsinks, and I suggested a fan. What did you miss?

This is what I did with my 4850 and the thing cools really, really well.

 

[mwmorph]

The GDDR5 ram actually isnt particularly hot. I have a Powercolor 48701GB PCS+ and with the factory Zerotherm cooler, it works fine. The Zerotherm is a single fan, finned raditor with heatpipes and the ram is actually covered by nothing more than a strip of copper, not even heatsinks.
http://www.overclockersclub.co...wercolor_4870pcs/2.htm

It cools fine and I have never had any temperature or stability issues. Generally, you can almost always assume that DDR ram runs fairly cool. Same with the X1950 with the Duo-Orb. The memory heatsinks never even get warm to the touch. The biggest problem besides cooling the gpu you need to worry about are the Mosfets. The single strip of components running across the board that provide power get very hot and at the very least require some sort of heatsink.

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: Binky
Ummm, the accelero comes with ramsinks, and I suggested a fan. What did you miss?

I didn't missed anything, you've missed it. It's because those three VRM chips ( not the ram chips ) dissipate a lot of heat under load and for that, they need a big heatsink with a large heat dissipation area, which clearly, the little heatsinks provided with the S1, aren't sufficient for that. This is why ATi opted for that big chunk of steel red plate, to keep up with the VRM heat output.

VRMs overheating with aftermarket coolers on 4870

I also had tried it myself and started a thread about this issue. I had 95 C on the VRMs after just a couple of seconds in ATi tool.

S1 works great on lots of videocards, especially on 4850, but not on 4870 though. And this has been discussed all over the net for months and yet, some still find the S1 as a great cooler for 4870 cards. Strange....