How are you cooling your graphics card? got something special/different? show it off.

[bear jesus]

Thanks for the reply. The fan noise isn't super loud, but it's just enough to irritate the hell out of me. I guess I'll pull the trigger - 'Tis the season to shop, you know.

I know the kind of noise, my old 4870's fan had a similar problem and even though it was quiet it was annoying enough to get me to stop using it.

But as you said, this time of hear you hardly even need an excuse for an upgrade even if its just a better/quieter cooler

I just realized (after having read your reply) that my grammar is horrible.

My grammar is pretty horrific normally due to trying to type quick in game or with instant messaging programs, i try to put a little more effort in while using TUP but it's still far from perfect.... i think? i may be English but i fail pretty hard with written English when it comes to truly correct grammar.

 

[theonedub]

If I can't get my Corsair 600T I am going to try and trade someone the AXP w/ 470 mounts for a Twin FrozrII heatsink.

 

[MT Alex]

Not very different, but I think it's pretty special, and it works very well.
A little love from Danger Den.

 

[Mussels]

My grammar is pretty horrific normally due to trying to type quick in game or with instant messaging programs, i try to put a little more effort in while using TUP but it's still far from perfect.... i think? i may be English but i fail pretty hard with written English when it comes to truly correct grammar.

TechUpPower?

 

[bear jesus]

TechUpPower?

exactly what i mean.

Not very different, but I think it's pretty special, and it works very well.
A little love from Danger Den.

Very nice, I'm a little jealous

 

[Patches O'Houlihan]

Done and done. I'll post pics once I get the cooler and install it.

 

[Bjorn_Of_Iceland]

Not very different, but I think it's pretty special, and it works very well.
A little love from Danger Den.

http://img.techpowerup.org/101130/007.jpg

Nice clamps, very sleek looking

 

[InnocentCriminal]

MY zalman fits the 6800 without even having to change the location of the mounting screws so i would assume the zerotherm fits, the stuck on heatsinks are a bit scary to remove sometimes they just don't want to move, i normally just gently twist side to side while pulling for a while and they come away eventually but you need new thermal pads to apply them to another card.

Am I right in thinking Bear that you've successfully managed to put your VF1000 on a 6870, what brand of 6870, does it follow the stock reference card/PCB?

 

[bear jesus]

Am I right in thinking Bear that you've successfully managed to put your VF1000 on a 6870, what brand of 6870, does it follow the stock reference card/PCB?

Yes right now one of the cards has a VF1000 on it, it's a sapphire card and is the reference design.

The only problem was that to fit it with the vrm and memory cooling plate i had to take a hacksaw to it and cut the little bit of metal that sticks out next to the power plugs, if i had some thermal pads for the bunch of ram sinks i have then i would have just stuck them on the vrm's and memory... probably should have bought some instead of killing the warranty and resale value oh well, at least panther gets a cheap 6870.

 

[HammerON]

Cooling two EVGA GTX 470's with Koolance water blocks:

 

[Tatty_Two]

I have an intricate cooling solution consisting of a Rube Goldberg mechanism. It involves a monkey, a stack of bananas, a rubber belt, some pulleys and a fan. Unfortunately i have to change the bananas every few days because they go bad and start to stink. Once my monkey got sick and i had to blow the fan myself. Luckily it quickly got better and everything returned to normal.

Even tho my solution is much more awesome, I like yours more because it takes a lot less space and you don't have a monkey screaming at you and throwing poop when it gets mad.

In my experience, Monkeys can be costly to keep, and as you mentioned, they take up a lot of space, whats interesting is we think alike, my old rig had a near identical setup to yours, however I rigged a Hamster wheel to it, that hamster kept runnin in that wheel, thing is he could only eat when the puter was switched off, now for a cruncher that aint good, so I got my hamster to start a family, eventually there were 6 of the little lovelies, then we could introduce a rota......that worked much better, one would run the wheel, one would eat, one would sleep, one would clean the wheel runners crap up, the last 2 would breed..... I was thinking WCG farms!

 

[InnocentCriminal]

Yes right now one of the cards has a VF1000 on it, it's a sapphire card and is the reference design.

Hmmm... I have a VF1000 that I'll probably transplant on to my next card. Looking forward to owning a 6870.

 

[bear jesus]

Hmmm... I have a VF1000 that I'll probably transplant on to my next card. Looking forward to owning a 6870.

Shame i already have a deal setup for the one i made suitable for a vf1000, it would have been perfect for you so i could have tried to poke you in to taking it off my hands

 

[InnocentCriminal]

Thanks for the consideration but I like a warranty with my purchases.



Last time I was given something without a warranty, it died shortly after installing it. I'm trying to decide on a 6850 for £130 or a 6870 for £170.

 

[bear jesus]

Thanks for the consideration but I like a warranty with my purchases.



Last time I was given something without a warranty, it died shortly after installing it. I'm trying to decide on a 6850 for £130 or a 6870 for £170.

That just makes it worse as i agreed to give a refund if it died after a reasonable period of usage, oh well, hopefully only a few days until the 6870's are gone then a little while longer until my 6970 arrives

To be honest even though the 6850 is great value i went for the 6870's for the extra power, a lot of people say overclock the 6850 to 6870 speed but even if you overclock it to 1ghz you could just do the same with the 6870 and it be even quicker due to the extra stream processors.

It's down to you if you think the extra cash is worth it but if you intend to stick with the card for a while i would always suggest getting the more powerful one, although many 5850's don't have the cooling plate they just have a vrm cooler that as long as it's not too tall would be perfect to go with the vf1000 and no warranty voiding has to happen.

 

[InnocentCriminal]

To be honest even though the 6850 is great value i went for the 6870's for the extra power, a lot of people say overclock the 6850 to 6870 speed but even if you overclock it to 1ghz you could just do the same with the 6870 and it be even quicker due to the extra stream processors.

Yeah, I'm swaying towards the 6870.

It's down to you if you think the extra cash is worth it but if you intend to stick with the card for a while i would always suggest getting the more powerful one, although many 5850's don't have the cooling plate they just have a vrm cooler that as long as it's not too tall would be perfect to go with the vf1000 and no warranty voiding has to happen.

It's always been my ethos to get the most powerful card I can afford and I'm stretching my budget when opting for the 6870 but I know I won't be happy if I don't get it.

 

[bear jesus]

Yeah, I'm swaying towards the 6870.

It's always been my ethos to get the most powerful card I can afford and I'm stretching my budget when opting for the 6870 but I know I won't be happy if I don't get it.

I think you should get the 6870, i was happily surprised how well a single one deals with older games at 5040x1050 and most newer games run ok at that res but can't fully everything, but at 1680x1050 almost anything can be fully maxed out (excluding some games where x16AA+ is like a kick in the nuts to the card).

 

[InnocentCriminal]

I think you should get the 6870, i was happily surprised how well a single one deals with older games at 5040x1050 and most newer games run ok at that res but can't fully everything, but at 1680x1050 almost anything can be fully maxed out (excluding some games where x16AA+ is like a kick in the nuts to the card).

Excellent! I'll be sad to see my 4870 go, it's a fantastic card! I'm looking forward to being able to play BC2, STALKER: CoP & finally start Metro 2033 in DX11.



All I need now is a decent PCIe SSD.

 

[bear jesus]

Excellent! I'll be sad to see my 4870 go, it's a fantastic card! I'm looking forward to being able to play BC2, STALKER: CoP & finally start Metro 2033 in DX11.



All I need now is a decent PCIe SSD.

To be honest i was not sad to see my 4870 go, my pc is on 24/7 so the idle power draw over it's lifetime cost more than the card did

I just recently bought metro 2033 but i was so unhappy to find out the mouse gets screwed when using eyefinity and after using eyefinity i don't ever want to play on a single screen until they have ones as wide as 3 monitors resolution wise but that means no metro 2033 for me

I agree with the SSD though, i have been very tempted by the ocz revodrive x2

 

[AsRock]

Hopefully Thermalright will make a R6 for them soon

This image doesn't show all I did, as when I tried to fit it all together the end tips of the heat pipes hit the fins on the left side. So I had to go back and cut the middle fins flush about halfway along their length. Put the green blob there to show where I had to cut, roughly.

Edit* And yeah obviously I had to cut a large square section out around the core.

http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/2657/p1000748bdb.jpg

What i did with the 2900XT and 4870\90 till TR came out with a solution.

 

[Patches O'Houlihan]

Sorry to all for the late reply. Better late than never, but never late is better.

I get great cooling from the Icy Vision. After 3 hours of SC2 at High-Ultra settings it doesn't crack 46C, and usually idles between 26C-28C. (Note: My room is heated to about 70F)

 

[bear jesus]

very nice, don't worry about the timing of the post as it's always nice to see some good pics of what people are doing.

Very nice temps as well, have you tried any extra voltage to see how far it will go? i convinced a friend to get a 460 and with a tiny bit more voltage he got well past 950mhz, I'm unsure if he stressed enough to find out if 975mhz was 100% stable but it seams like a little voltage goes a long way on the 460.

 

[(FIH) The Don]

got this beatie boy on one of the 275s

great effin cooler

idle is around 30c and load is around 45c

 

[Patches O'Houlihan]

Very nice temps as well, have you tried any extra voltage to see how far it will go?

950 is a beast of a jump. I've just kept mine at 810 for gaming, and 865mhz being the highest I've tried so far without voltage tweaking. I've thought about it, but I haven't had the time to mess around much. I don't know when I'll find the time to do so.

got this beatie boy on one of the 275s

That thing is equivalent in size to Shaq's foot. Dwarfs all else in comparison.

 

[(FIH) The Don]

ya tell me about it lol, it bends the card like a mofo and takes up 3 slots

i would not hessitate on getting a second for the other 275, its just effin awesome