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Who has Nice HSF?

DasFox

Diamond Member
From what I've read with most of the Gigabyte boards it seems like the NB chip runs hot. I'm wondering if just taking off the Gigabyte NB heatsink, and replacing the grease with some good ole Artic Silver would be good enough, also I've been wondering if using one of the EnzoTech heat sinks would offer better cooling with the Artic instead.

http://www.enzotechnology.com/northbridge.htm

What do you guys think, stock heatsink & Artic, or one of the EnzoTech and Artic?

By the way any other GREAT passive coolers?

THANKS & ALOHA
 
Putting on Arctic Silver shouldn't impact it very much at all, and replacing a massive aluminum heatsink with a small copper heatsink should help even less.

As for aftermarket heatsinks, Thermalright HR-05/HR-05-SLI and Noctua NC-U6 seem to be the popular ones.
 
Originally posted by: StopSign
Putting on Arctic Silver shouldn't impact it very much at all, and replacing a massive aluminum heatsink with a small copper heatsink should help even less.

As for aftermarket heatsinks, Thermalright HR-05/HR-05-SLI and Noctua NC-U6 seem to be the popular ones.


Well even though it's big, it's aluminum, and from some stuff I've read the EnzoTech cooled better then the stock aluminum.

The Thermalright NB coolers don't stay in place well, and move around to easy, so I wouldn't want either of them.

I heard that the Micro Cool NorthPole XE are suppose to be nice:

http://www.microcool.it/english/whispprod.html
 
don't go with enzotech on this one. those hs's are too small for all the computing that chipset is going to be doing. IMO go with your second choice, the microcool, as it is copper and has a decent fan on it
 
Originally posted by: covert24
don't go with enzotech on this one. those hs's are too small for all the computing that chipset is going to be doing. IMO go with your second choice, the microcool, as it is copper and has a decent fan on it

Ok, anyone else?

 
Zalman has a couple of nice options...

...just ask the Asus A8N-SLI owners with the cr@ptastic northbridge fan...

Chuck
 
HR-05/SLI or any Zalman (especially flower type).
Buy one, fit it & be happy. No need for a big thread on the subject 😀
 
Originally posted by: FireTech
HR-05/SLI or any Zalman (especially flower type).
Buy one, fit it & be happy. No need for a big thread on the subject 😀

cr@ptastic northbridge fan? Who/What/Where is this?

Actually FireTech there is a lot more to it then maybe you realize.

The thermalright are not secured in place very well, and move about to easy.

As far as some of the Zalman, the difference in materials over the EnzoTech, and do they cool as equal, sure it seems like an easy task, and it's not that complicated, but then again, no one is really stepping forth with any REAL TRUE information that points to tests showing some superiority over others.

I'm an enthusiast, this is suppose to be an enthusiasts post, not just someone looking for anything, but NB coolers that work for performance/higher-end requirements...

Also this thread is about in particular Gigabyte boards that tend to have a HOT NB chip, and need some good cooling on them.

Don't worry about the size of the thread, what's important is sharing knowledge, and learning.

Aloha
 
I just replaced the puny stock passive aluminum heatsink on a Gigabyte 8I865GME-777-RH rev 2.0, with an Evercool VC-RE (vga cooler, but fits chipsets). Before it was so hot I couldn't hold my finger on it, now it's cool to the touch. All copper, 5000RPM fan, beats stock hunk of aluminum any day.
 
Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
I just replaced the puny stock passive aluminum heatsink on a Gigabyte 8I865GME-777-RH rev 2.0, with an Evercool VC-RE (vga cooler, but fits chipsets). Before it was so hot I couldn't hold my finger on it, now it's cool to the touch. All copper, 5000RPM fan, beats stock hunk of aluminum any day.

Yeah I've heard of people touting the Evercool for the NB chips as working nice...
 
Originally posted by: DasFox
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: FireTech
HR-05/SLI or any Zalman (especially flower type).
Buy one, fit it & be happy. No need for a big thread on the subject 😀</end quote></div>

cr@ptastic northbridge fan? Who/What/Where is this?

Actually FireTech there is a lot more to it then maybe you realize.

The thermalright are not secured in place very well, and move about to easy.

As far as some of the Zalman, the difference in materials over the EnzoTech, and do they cool as equal, sure it seems like an easy task, and it's not that complicated, but then again, no one is really stepping forth with any REAL TRUE information that points to tests showing some superiority over others.

I'm an enthusiast, this is suppose to be an enthusiasts post, not just someone looking for anything, but NB coolers that work for performance/higher-end requirements...

Sorry but you did ask for opinions so that was mine taking in to consideration that you seemed to have the answer already.
It's not just Gigabyte boards that run hot NB's, most NVidia NF boards seem to too.

My HR05-SLI did move a little on initial installation with fresh AS5 (due to the leverage exerted) but as the PC just sits there on the floor, I don't have an issue with it. Maybe if your a Lan-Party addict then it would be for you.

It keeps my chipset much cooler passively than the noisy stock fan cooler ever did so it's a winner in my book.

I think I've read most of the NB coolers reviews (all using slightly different test methodology) including Noctua, Zalman, Thermalright etc(Google) and it mainly comes down to space in which to fit the cooler, cooling method, local availability and price.
For what it's worth the HR05 and Noctua seemed to be cream of the (passive) crop with the Zalman flower best budget passive cooler and the evercool 'best' fan cooler.

Like I said (with a big cheeky grin), fit a Thermalright or Zalman and be happy 😀 (oops, there's another one...)



 
Originally posted by: DasFox
From what I've read with most of the Gigabyte boards it seems like the NB chip runs hot. I'm wondering if just taking off the Gigabyte NB heatsink, and replacing the grease with some good ole Artic Silver would be good enough, also I've been wondering if using one of the EnzoTech heat sinks would offer better cooling with the Artic instead.

http://www.enzotechnology.com/northbridge.htm

What do you guys think, stock heatsink & Artic, or one of the EnzoTech and Artic?

By the way any other GREAT passive coolers?

THANKS & ALOHA

What you need to lower the temperature is MORE heat sink surface area, MORE air flow, and/or cooler air temperature. The surface area option can be challenging around the NB region, especially if you have a high performance CPU cooler. The most elegant solution is to lock-wire a small fan to the NB to move more air across the fins.

My rig has an 80 mm low speed Panaflo attached to the right side of my Big Typhoon. The extra air flow is good enough to cool any passive NB heat sink and RAM. Just remember that you still need cold moving air to extract heat away from the chip.

 
Any Zalman? So the spare NB-47Js (the blue ones, NOT the flower ones though) will be better than the stock thing even though they're smaller? I have a couple extras around and just assumed they would be worse than stock.
 
Originally posted by: dandragonrage
Any Zalman? So the spare NB-47Js (the blue ones, NOT the flower ones though) will be better than the stock thing even though they're smaller? I have a couple extras around and just assumed they would be worse than stock.

You would assume correctly. I think the post above yours gives a good short summary on the requirements.
A lot of the statements in this thread (including mine) are based on generalisation given that the OP didn't specify the particular board at issue.
If the replacement cooler isn't made of a 'better' material, larger surface area, 'catching' more air, fitted with a higher flowing fan, etc etc then it's likely you'd be wasting your time/money fitting it.
 
I loved the blue Zalman passive cooler. It was a great improvement for my ECS KN1 SLI Extreme (Screw you ECS for dying on me 🙁), which had a very noisy little screamer on the northbridge.

~MiSfit
 
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