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Lighter and Cooler Graphics Card Cooler

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the doing-it-the-easy-way-is-boring dept.

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."

8 of 84 comments (clear)

  1. Cooler and more silent by DevanJedi · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Cooler and more silent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      With about the same thermal profile as the Intel celeron, the AMD Duron gets significantly higher performance at similar price levels.

  2. Worthless comparison by Philodoxx · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.
    1. Re:Worthless comparison by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Same here - when the fan failed on my ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, I replaced it with a VGA Silencer and it's completely awesome.

      The only problem with installation is that I had to trim one of the plastic edges a little because of a component on my particular revision of the graphics card getting in the way (which took me less than 5 minutes using scissors!), but otherwise it's been flawless. It was certainly far less hassle than having to buy a new $200 graphics card - and it actually reduced my case temperature because it blows hot graphics card air out the back of the case (unlike the standard fan which did not).

  3. Re:Takes up 5 PCI slots - useless for most people by blackicye · · Score: 2, Interesting

    His solution was not only more unwieldy but is more expensive than an aftermarket Graphics card heatsink. (He even uses the rear retention clip from another graphics card cooler)

    Also it doesn't cool the ram chips which almost all of the ready-made graphics card coolers do.

    He should have just invested in a water cooling setup for CPU and GPU and eliminated all those fans from his system.

    Would've cost a little more, but obtained far better (and neater) results, with much less effort (ever tried removing all the fins from a heatsink?).

  4. I Wish... by RAMMS+EIN · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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).

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    Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
  5. I did this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    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).

  6. that's why bought a new case fan today by YesIAmAScript · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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