X-bit HD4870 aftermarket cooler review

[Concillian]

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articl...twinturbo-musashi.html

If you skip to the important portion on page 12:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articl...nturbo-musashi_12.html

It's clear that the stock cooler is much better at cooling the VRMs. To get the same VRDM temperature as the stock fan at 25%, the aftermarket solutions have to run high speed.

Nothing even comes close to as good as stock HSF at 35% speed on VRM temp, except, of course, stock HSF at 100% speed

So while aftermarket coolers may bring the GPU temps way down, the VRM temps stay as high or even higher than stock temps and may create their own problems. Their results confirm this

This is why we only tested the coolers on a graphics cards working at its nominal frequencies and didn?t overclock it: even when we increased the GPU frequency only to 800MHz the card would hang during the test cycle, which didn?t occur with a reference cooler. Even the aluminum heatsinks on these components didn?t help improve the card?s overclocking potential, unfortunately.

 

[error8]

Yeah, that has been noticed all around the web, when people were installing aftermarket coolers on their 4870 and the card suffered a sudden death, even though the gpu and memory chips were very cool. I noticed it too. My accelero S1 was keeping the card very cold, except the VRM area,which used to touch around 100C and maybe more. An interesting idea, when you are using an aftermarket cooler and if it fits, it's to use the red aluminium plate that the stock cooler has. Put that onto the VRMs and on the ram chips and mount the accelero to cool the GPU. But this works only with the S1 from what I know and all this extra effort seems a bit too much. The best thing to do is to use the stock cooler and up the fan speed.

 

[Zebo]

I don't know what the after market cooling companies are trying to accomplish - maybe portability or more likely catering to deviants from reference designs - but not cooling the VRM's/Ram is a sure-fire way to kill your hardware. Water block manufactures don't have this problem ex: http://www.xspc.biz/razor4870.php

The best thing to do is to use the stock cooler and up the fan speed.

Best for whom? Best for me is to run highend hardware that never eclipses 40C and do it silently.

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: Zebo


Best for whom? Best for me is to run highend hardware that never eclipses 40C and do it silently.

Best from the $$ point of view. Of course , water cooling is the best thing to do, but not everyone has the cash for that.

 

[YearZero]

Easy solution that error8 already mentioned is to use part of the stock cooler when using an aftermarket cooler.

I also chopped off the fan-section of the stock cooler and have it mounted along with a HR-03 GT on my 4870.

I noticed that you dont really need to up the fan speed to cool the VRMs when you're overclocking as the fan at around 900RPM cools the VRMs sufficiently in that artifacts start happening all over the place on higher clocks without the VRMs getting too hot and resetting the system.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Simply installing individual ramsinks onto the VRMs and then making sure you have some airflow overthem is just as good as the stock, if not better.

 

[YearZero]

Well, on my Sapphire 4870, even with ramsinks supplied by Thermalright and a 120mm fan directly blowing onto them FurMark still resetted the system when the VRMs got up to 150C
With the stock cooler, the VRMs barely break 100C in FurMark.

I can of course, only speak for myself.

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles
Simply installing individual ramsinks onto the VRMs and then making sure you have some airflow overthem is just as good as the stock, if not better.

Nope, that is not enough. I have a friend that uses the supplied heatsinks that came with his Thermalright Hr 03 GT and the VRM are hitting 100C, even though he uses a 3000 rpm 120 mm fan!

I also tried installing an Accelero S1 on my 4870 and the heatsink used to cool the VRMs, kept them at 95C, until I aborted Furmark ( it could have gone higher ). Those little chips on the 4870 card, have a very high TDP and so they need a big heatsink, with a large heat exchange surface, to keep them cool.

YearZero, could you post some pictures with your videocard mod?

 

[YearZero]

Here are some pictures of my fairly crude, but functional mod.

http://img117.imageshack.us/img117/5796/img2199qy2.jpg
http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/9936/img2194wx9.jpg
http://img60.imageshack.us/img60/7753/img2197ym0.jpg
http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/3255/img2190aa8.jpg
http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/61/img1654ej6.jpg


Naturally you can forget about selling the card without the aftermarket sink, haha.

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: YearZero
Here are some pictures of my fairly crude, but functional mod.

http://img117.imageshack.us/img117/5796/img2199qy2.jpg
http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/9936/img2194wx9.jpg
http://img60.imageshack.us/img60/7753/img2197ym0.jpg
http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/3255/img2190aa8.jpg
http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/61/img1654ej6.jpg


Naturally you can forget about selling the card without the aftermarket sink, haha.

It looks great like that! I was wondering, if you would have mounted the heatsink upside down, the red plate still had to be cut, isn't it? Or it could have fitted as a whole?

 

[Concillian]

Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles
Simply installing individual ramsinks onto the VRMs and then making sure you have some airflow overthem is just as good as the stock, if not better.

This is contrary to the article.

Aftermarket solutions reviewed:
- had ramsinks on the VRMs
- had fans in the vicinity of the VRMs, blowing air over them.

Yet still the stock heatsink outperformed them (for VRM cooling) by a rather wide margin (unless you compare max fan speed for aftermarket vs. lowest fan speed for stock cooling)

 

[dug777]

How does X-bit get their VRM temperatures?

GPU-Z only gives me GPU/DISPI0/MEMI0/SHADERCORE for my 4850.

My experience with my 4850 is that the VRMs seem to matter, my card has the Asus Glaciator HSF without any VRM cooling and will crash under Furmark regardless of the clockspeed (my core does 790, it just crashes quicker under Furmark at 790 than it does at 625). It was also crashing in FarCry.

I have jury-rigged a 80mm fan blowing directly on to the VRMS and I don't get any crashes in gaming (regardless of core speed), but it will still crash after about 6 mins of Furmark.

Will try some Zalman RAMsinks on the VRMs and report back as to whether that makes any difference

 

[YearZero]

Originally posted by: error8

It looks great like that! I was wondering, if you would have mounted the heatsink upside down, the red plate still had to be cut, isn't it? Or it could have fitted as a whole?

Unfortunately the plate still had to be cut, there were just too many points of interference with the HR-03.
The only way would be to bend the heatpipes and modify the HR-03 in some way by either cutting away or filing the mounting brackets, something I'm not prepared to do

The newer GPU-Z versions support VRM measuring although sometimes it doesn't work in XP.
Always works in Vista though...strange.