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Lighter and Cooler Graphics Card Cooler
Joey Braff writes "Max did a great guide on converting a cpu cooler into a graphics card cooler. Produced better results than expensive graphics coolers even though its lighter and cheaper. Test results available."
Who the hell is Max?
It's not supply and demand, because high-end cooling units probably get used as much with graphics as CPUs, at least in expensive desktops.
Maybe the just reckon that that sort of gamer has more money to blow on overpriced stuff to allow the graphics go faster?
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
http://images.google.com/images?q=Max&hl=en&lr=&sa =N&tab=wi
Considering Thermalright already makes an almost identical version specifically made for graphics cards which doesn't take up as much space, and probably doesn't cost much more (or maybe even less), what's the point? The one made for GPUs seems to be better anyway, since it only rose 35 deg. C w/ a 6800GT (with is much hotter than a 9800 Pro).
Sheesh, the mod blocks off three or four of the boards PCI slots! Who needs a RAID or Wireless card when you've got such high graphics power!
Bork Bork Bork!!
How cheap can you be? A Zalman VGA cooler costs $25 at Newegg, takes up 2 PCI slots including the PCI-E/VGA, and cools the card almost completely silently. How many people have 5 free PCI slots on their motherboard to waste on an oversized VGA cooler of questionable usefulness? The thing is not even near silent since they use a noisy 80MM fan to do the cooling.
Temperature and noise are going to be major factors in computer design as the PC moves from the desktop to other locations in the house. A Celeron with 256MB RAM is already a tremendous workhorse for video, audio, etc. I am in the process of creating client-server based media centre and my prime concern is heat and noise; not power and memory, those are cheap and easy to come by.
Why is everyone so worried about cooling? Assuming, like the majority, you're not overclocking, as long as you GPU doesn't burn out it will give the same performance no mtter how hot it is.
The stock fans already fitted are more than sufficient to make sure it won't melt down so why waste money?
But then I realised that it would be cheaper just to move to Pluto where cooling would be an easy-to-solve problem.
Beep beep.
Uninformed gamers will blow money on overpriced stuff. Even gamers who know better may spend more. When you spend big bucks on a graphics card, what's a few more for cooling? BTW that fits very neatly into "supply and DEMAND" economics, rather than contradicting it.
Moronic, and not worth the effort.
If you're going to go through all that trouble on extensive modifications, warranty voiding, and increased risk of failure, why not just spend more money?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
is still one of the cheapest and most effective methods to lower heat. Few PC cases are properly designed with heat dissipation in mind. The blast-furnace temeratures of the Pentium 4 has driven many to search out inexpensive solutions. Before spending money on admittedly effective, but costly, hardware such as water cooling, it is well worthwhile to explore the benefits of proper ducting:
http://overclockers.com/tips1193/
http://overclockers.com/tips1187/
"My graphics are so incredible that they've struck me deaf"
Three Stooges Porn.
Great search, but good gravy that's creepy (not safe for the moral majority.)
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
The TT SI-97 costs about $45 CDN, while a VGA Silencer costs about $30 CDN. I use a VGA silencer and it's a pretty nice product, so I'm curious why it was not included in the benchmarking.
Oh, a lesson in history from Mr. I'm my own grandpa.
A cooler cooler? I guess that's better than having a "hottie" cooler.
I've got the impression that most people/companies who build cooling systems for computers, don't have the most basic clues about fluid dynamics, and this article is no exception.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Great idea. Keeps the video card ice cold, but you need to free up 5 PCI slots, and take out the motherboard, powersupply, hard drive, and CD-ROM to make room. Worth every penny!
TFA had at least two huge banners for me that pointed to known malware sites:
http://www.spywarestormer.com/
http://www.errorguard.com/
(the sites are very similar, btw)
That's ain't 'cool'.
throw new SuccessException("Sig read successfully");
This thread may not be the most appropriate place for my wish...but I still wish some company would just focus on making components that do not require active cooling.
As I recall, ATI's Radeon 9600 could be run without any fans, and makes a fine graphics card. I reckon that, with the advances in technology, we should be able to get much better performance today.
A similar argument applies to CPUs. The G4 in my iBook performs fine, and the fan is almost always stationary. This CPU is a a number of years old now, surely today we can do even better.
And I'm sure there is a market for fanless systems. The number one complaint I hear about hardware these days is that it's noisy. The only noise I hear coming out of my computer is from the CD drive (and the hard drive when I listen carefully).
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
I did this when I got a free Geforce 4 TI4600 that had it's heatsink and fans removed.
So I built a spare Sphire Orb (that's the name as far as I can remember) CPU fan on the GPU with some thermalfluid between it and it works great. I'm still using it today (in this pc).
I did this years ago with my ati 9800 pro. It's a little loud, but I'm able to overclock to 465/395 without problems. So this isn't really news.
word.
My case temps were hovering around 50C, and my GPU temp was hitting 80C (playing Half-Life 2). Honestly, I wouldn't care much, except my GPU started glitching. It glitched enough it became quite annoying. I already have a Zalman video card cooler for it, and it moves a lot of air quietly, it just seemed to me like that blowing 50C air over the video card isn't going to cool it as effectively as room-temp air.
So I kicked my case fan up to full speed, and it solved the problem. Case temps are now around 40C and the GPU hits about 75C. Glitching is gone.
But the case fan is too loud this way (even though it is a 120mm) so I got a new one, and a fan controller. I'll dial down the speed to compromise on temp and noise.
If I didn't have this stupid 6800 ULTRA video card, I wouldn't have any problems with temps.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
>Produced better results than expensive graphics coolers even though its lighter and cheaper.
Could you tell me where I could buy a lighter and cheaper? If you wouldn't mind letting me know, it'd be great.
At the same time, I'd like to recommend a purchase for the editors (this is their responsibility). This is it.
Oh, so funny! There was a comment under the parent that mentioned Zonk getting fired. I've never seen the "editors" outright delete a comment!
...is for someone to convert a water cooler into a graphics card cooler. Now, that would be impressive.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
I and MANY MANY other people have been doing this sort of thing for a LONG time.
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In fact I started doing it back in the TNT2 Ultra days.
Use a 1U CPU cooler and you won't block more than 1 PCI slot at most.
Here are a few examples: (This from my old GF4 ti4200)
http://wyrdone.org/casemods/DCP00783_t.jpg
http://wyrdone.org/casemods/DCP00784_t.jpg
I've since done the same for my Radeon 9800XT 256MB card.
Using the Thermaltake Volcano 10 Cooler ( http://www.thermaltake.com/coolers/volcano/si/a16
the card runs overclocked at 500Mhz at 50'C.
Not really but a while back when my trusty Geforce 4 Ti 4200 died after it sat in my BSD gaming router for ages ( from the copious amounts of dust that gathered in the stock HSF ) I modded a ThermalTake fan that was supposed to be use for a Barton / Sempron 2600+ and up.
Not all that hard and it ran the card loads cooler. I zip tied the thing into place on top of the GPU and went to work soldering the thing into place making sure not to touch any of the circuitry and whatnot, took about 10 minutes and was painless and pretty neat experience.
When my GPU cooler started failing, I got recommended an Aerocool VideoMagic VM-101 cooler. It weighs only 220 grams (less than the 400-500 of a Zalman cooler, certainly) and cools my Radeon 9800 Pro stunningly. I can even overclock it by about 70 MHz easily, which I don't do, so it's most adequate.
Uses heatpipes to bring the heat to fins on the back of the card, which is where you typically have case fans to suck air out. I bought one with adjustable speed and set it to lowest, just in case.
Overall, recommended.
There's two answers:
I had a 6800 Ultra in an Antec Sonata (mini-Tower) case with two HDs and two optical drives, and it has only a single case fan and that was only at 5V or something. Plus the PS has only a single PS fan.
So basically, no air flow.
The additional thing to know is that the 50C "case temp" I reported is actually the "ambient" sensor on the 6800 Ultra, so it doesn't mean my whole case interior was really at 50C. In fact, I would say it wasn't, since you could touch the case and it didn't feel warm.
The sensor is probably somewhat incorrect due to how my Zalman GPU cooler spreads air around the video card. The stock cooing solution didn't push any air over the edges of the card and so the "ambient" sensor is probably there. Now the ambient sensor probably gets some cooling (i.e. heated) air over it.
Either way, I don't give a rip. 50C isn't much to electronics. If the thing wasn't malfunctioning, I wouldn't even have bothered speeding up the rear fan.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
150c? That's just amazing...I'd figure components would have been melted at that point. I guess I shouldnt worry about my overclocked 6600GT at 75c!
Many of you may brag that you have done it before but thank you CmdrTaco for posting this. I would never have the guts to try it without a guide like this to show me how its done. Great to see real comparative results too. Better than reading all the often inane boasts on Slashdot.
not to win the cooler tho.. but just a pair of Mushkin RAM. Linkie -> http://www.rojakpot.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=244 &pgno=0
Hey, that looks like the poster child for Don't Sleep On Your Stomach When Entering Puberty.
Gigabyte makes an entire line of cards that are passive, from FX5200s all the way up to X800XLs and 6800GTs. You'll pay more for the high end cards than other manufacturers, but you get silence in exchange.
-ZA