What cheap full card VGA cooler are people using these days? (universal)

[faxon]

Looking for a cooler to replace the stock blower fan on a ref 6970 cause its going in a rig with a bunch of other cards (2 5870s for starters) and i want something that's inexpensive, and which if it works well could possibly also be installed on other cards in the future or if i need another one. budget is as tight as it gets though so i'm wondering if there's such thing as a $30 VGA cooler that doesnt suck, much like with CPU cooling and the hyper 212+ or similar $30 units

 

[fleshconsumed]

I've had success with Accelero S1/Plus on 7950, so it should work on 6970. However, chances are you will have to put 1000-1200RPM fans on it, and the whole thing will take about 4 slots...

 

[aigomorla]

i think stock cooling on high end cards has caught up with cheap aftermarkets to a point where, the labor installed is more of a hassle then the few extra C's.

 

[faxon]

i think stock cooling on high end cards has caught up with cheap aftermarkets to a point where, the labor installed is more of a hassle then the few extra C's.

we're talking about a 10dBa + difference it would make, and this card is running full tilt 24/7 doing DC. it sounds like it's about to take off. this is an old reference 6970 with the loud ass blower fan that they love using at launches. Compared to the 5870 that was running in it solo before the 6970 showed up the 5870 was a ghost and has the blower design as well. My 7950s are Sapphire 3 fan non exhausting types which get a big 230mm fan blowing on them to keep fresh air circulating over them and they hardly make a noise even when the 5870 is off. Was expecting more noise from 1 card but that one card is making more noise than everything else in my room except my DJ monitors 😛

 

[PliotronX]

I've had success with Accelero S1/Plus on 7950, so it should work on 6970. However, chances are you will have to put 1000-1200RPM fans on it, and the whole thing will take about 4 slots...

Yup, best most cost effective cooler this side of H2O. I fishline tied two low speed 120mm fans to mine and temps never exceed 50 degrees on a moderately OCed 7850 while being nearly silent. Definitely precludes a crossfire setup though...

 

[aigomorla]

Was expecting more noise from 1 card but that one card is making more noise than everything else in my room except my DJ monitors 😛

lolol!!

gamers dont care about fan noise.. its called ambience.. yeah.. thats it.. :whiste:

its the noise that allows us to sleep safe at night knowing our gpu isnt frying... :biggrin:

 

[faxon]

I'm also a DJ and having at least some upper limit on non music noise is a good thing. as it is now any time i'd want to practice DJing i would have to turn that particular computer to cpu only mode cause i can't tell it to just stop using the 6970 and only the 5870 to crunch units 🙁. its seriously the loudest thing ever lol idk what it is or if its just cause the fan vibrates a lot when it spins (i can feel it) or what but whoever designed this thing didn't care about noise clearly 🙂. What will probably end up happening is I will scrounge for parts and build a rig to contain the loud beast and put it in a room in the garage to compute in peace. If i had the funds, I'd just build the next gen version with the same board line (MSI X90FXA-GD70 line starting back with the k9a2 platinum till now, 4 PCIE slots for crossfire, solid to this day), go from an x3 720 BE to whatever 8 core i can afford, and use it as a drop box for all the double float 69xx and 79xx parts that are about to flood the market used

 

[lehtv]

Rather than upgrading the cooling on a two generations old card, I'd sell it away while it's still worth something and grab a non-reference 280X. I'd probably get MSI Gaming 280X.

Performance increase you can expect from a 280X: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/618?vs=509

FWIW I was in the same situation as you - I was basically happy with the performance of my 4870X2 but the reference cooler made it sound so horrible that I essentially sidegraded to a 10-20% faster 560 Ti for £100 net. This time around though, you wouldn't have to pay that much for a 10-20% faster quiet card... a 7870 GHz would be faster and u can grab a Sapphire one for $160 AR on newegg. Selling your 6970 you'd pay about $60 net.