The Official Cooling Thread!

The HD4870X2 I use exhausts heat both out the vent and into the case - it's not pointless, it's mandatory to cool the card sufficiently.

 

Sam,
I'm sure you've noticed that almost all video cards no longer have vent slots in the fan shroud, so they must be putting in better cooling than they did a year ago. The only one I would say is pointless is the Radeon HD 3850 512MB! There isn't even a duct to direct the air towards the rear vent. You could accomplish the same thing by just removing a port blank!

With yours, I can see the need as you have 2 GPUs in it! Most of the single GPU cards have no internal exhaust at all. Palit being the exception. I think I've seen one of theirs that had no inside heat vents. All the others they make are totally useless as a two slot except maybe to suck in some cool air through the grille.

Russ

 

umm im sure you will need vents near fan to draw more air in aswell

 

spamual,
No, all the air is drawn in by the fan opening. Here's an excellent example of a 4870 with no heat vents at all. Air is drawn in from the opening in the fan and exhausted directly out the rear vent. No other openings at all!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814103061

Russ

 

from what i see at the front of the fan at the bottom there is a gap aswell, this would draw in cold air aslo cooling the PCB infront of it. also where the plastic bends (for lack of better word) around halfway up the cooler, is there not a hole there, or is the plastic just bent around?

 

spamual,
I don't think so but it is hard to see. It's a squirrel cage blower, so the only air feed that matters is at the opening of the fan blade at the top (actually the bottom as that's where the fan's intake is) as squirrel cage blowers only make sufficient air from the inside out. that's why the big rounded housing. Don't know what it's like noise wise, but that type of fan can move more air than a conventional multi blade fan.

Russ

 

Yes, that's the cooler the 4870 I owned briefly had, and it has no other airflow routing than straight through from the fan to the vent at the back out the case. The X2 is the same in that regard, but it carries an entirely separate heatsink above the standard one, presumably for cooling regulators or memory:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814129114
(the black bobbly bit )
Both cards use squirrel cage blowers which have an excellent noise signature compared to the standard 13 blade radial fans used in the 3870s cooler, which though far quieter in decibels, was 'noisier' due to its grind and buzz, something the 4870 and X2's coolers lack.
What's interesting is that despite the fact that newegg still sell 12 3870s, not one uses the reference cooler - sadly, I see they still sell two of the Sapphire cards with the appalling single-slot radial fan cooler. Not even the FM121s at full tilt gave me the almost migraine-like headache that card did.

Russ, which 3850 512MB do you refer to? I think the 3850 512MB's reference cooler was the same as the 256MB version, which is this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161214
That is an entirely internal cooler, as its single slot.

 

Sam,
I referred to this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814103051
Totally useless as a two slot solution, along with 99% of the Palit cards. A total joke, as all the heat stays in the case. There is no exhaust out the back! LOL!!

Russ

 

Has anyone here used the Thermoelectric coolers (Peltier) on their processors and/or GPU’s? I do like the combination of water and TEC because if the TEC fails, you still have the water cooling to prevent instant disaster. They are very expensive as can be seen from this link: http://www.frozencpu.com/products/6958/ex-wat-126/CoolIT_Systems_Freezone_Elite_Universal_CPU_Cooler_-_Preassembled_Internal_TEC_Water_Cooling_Kit_-_Socket_478_754_775_939_940_AM2_FZ-1003.html?tl=g30c105s189

 

Agreed, and it blocks you using a PCIe 1x slot if there's one beneath. Asus' coolers however use the same idea, an internal cooler that takes up two slots worth of room. Seemingly though that's the best way to cool a graphics card as with the fan undervolted to only 800rpm of its original 1800, the load temperature of the card was a full 20ºC less than the stock cooler.

spaul: TEC in general is bad for computers as the peltier itself generates its own heat on top of what it's trying to cool.

 

Check this out. I'm impressed:
http://www.driverheaven.net/overclocking-modding/168986-skulltrail-air-cooling-project.html

 

spaul40,

Would you please edit out that long URL for Frozen CPU as it's too long and knocks the screen out of whack. URL's won't word wrap (I think)! I can only imagine how bad it looks at 1024x768! LOL!! I have to scroll side to side to read the posts at 1680x1050! LOL!!

Thanks,
Russ

 

Er, it word wraps for me fine, even in a 1024x768 window...

 

It's those AMD cpus. They don't support word wrapping haha.

 

Sure Russ. How do you suggest I give a link for an item that has an overly long URL?

 

http://tinyurl.com

 

sam & Abuzar,
It word wraps fine, it's just the super long URL that has the page as wide as it can go, and I still have to use the scroll bar on the bottom. If I go back a page, everything is normal. As the resolution gets lower, you have to scroll more of the page to be able to read everything. It's the same kind of problem you get when a Pic is too large. The lower the resolution, the worse the problem. I have a 20.1" Widescreen monitor and the screen resolution is 1680x1050, and it's about an inch oversized. The AMD has a 19" widescreen at 1440x900, which is even worse. It's just that if you type a URL and it's wider than the page, it knocks the page out of whack! The problem is there on the Intel and the AMD! LOL!! The URL is 207 characters long, and it pushes the border of the screen so the bottom scroll bar apears. If you go back to the previous page the problem goes away!

We're not all rich like you guys with your 24" and 30" screens! LOL!!

Oh! Word wrap is a function of the software, not the CPU!! It should ward wrap at any resolution! ROFLMSOAO!!

Russ

 

That was a joke..
That aside, resized to a stupidly tiny window the URL wraps fine for me:

http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/1797/loluc1.jpg

 

Thanks

 

Sam,
It's one continuous line on all three computers here! It acts just like a "too large" pic that's been posted. When I clicked on the link all I got was the main page, not the product!

spaul40,
Please do me a favor and humor me. Just leave the Frozencpu.com and see if it changes anything. If I go back to the previous page the problem disappears.

Thanks,
Russ