They could make it more cost-effective if they stop putting plastic shrouds that have no purpose .

IceQ cooler model please..

werezThey could make it more cost-effective if they stop putting plastic shrouds that have no purpose .

+1

but bare in mind its to hide their shoddy coolers.

:laugh:

Werent the shroud directing the airflow? o_O

orb cooler, id like to see a review of this, the MSI 5870 Lightning and 5850 Cyclone

HA HA, this is the "egg cooler" only with a different shroud guys.

pantherx12HA HA, this is the "egg cooler" only with a different shroud guys.

^ and I am still personally not convinced that an aftermarket cooler is going to make more than a minute difference on an oc with these cards. They just don't run that hot.

I don't know there's always room for improvement after all.

The coolers that were on the last gen cards were the bare minimum also, and with after market they still overclocked, the same will apply to this generation.
Unless they've magic'd the GPUs then fair game to ATI :p

www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/VGA/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=3283

Now that is the cooler ^ LOL!!!

Yeah, but this oem cooler is way better (or a better fit for the card) over the older oem coolers, not to say it is the greatest..... but it gets the job done. I don't think an after market cooler would make as much difference as it did with my old 3870. One thing for certain I don't think it is worth the effort of a DIY unless it is liquid cooling.

Aye perhaps, but if you have a HR-03 GT laying around or one of the Arctic Cooling GPU coolers why not eh :p

*edit* my god , that is cooler! They were obviously inspired by the bat mobile esque original cooler!

Amazing :D

werezThey could make it more cost-effective if they stop putting plastic shrouds that have no purpose .

A+ to that. I would love to remove the shroud on the egg cooler... but I think it serves a purpose if there are 2 cards in crossfire... I would need to do a smoke test on it to be sure.

the real purpose was to redirect the airflow onto the VRM and ram modules , yes that might help a little , but since those do not have any heatsinks ( can`t be 100% sure , but i`m pretty sure about that ) , basically the shroud is pointless . If the fan was bigger i would understand that theory . Not to mention the fact that half of ram modules are on the back of the pcb and do not get any cooling at all . Another purpose of the shroud would be to protect the components from potential damage , but it looks really flimsy to me . So , pointless ? YES!
Anyway it`s nice to see that non-reference cards are coming , good or bad ones , but i expect better from HIS .

Their IceQ coolers are awesome so what is shoddy about their cooling exactly?

WarEagleAUTheir IceQ coolers are awesome so what is shoddy about their cooling exactly?

This isn't one of those coolers.

This is an egg cooler with a nicer shroud and a blue fan.