Best X1900 cooler?

Magus · 10-22-2006, 04:02 PM

I redirected friends o' mine to the arctic cooling, they had no problems with overclocking the cards

Gazz · 10-22-2006, 04:21 PM

I need a different cooler for my Sapphire X1900XT since the standard one is way too loud and doesn't cool good enough in my opinion. I ussualy have no problems finding a decent one but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of real choise's for the 1900 series.

You guys know of any I might have missed? Found the Artic cooling and Zalman so far which both seem to be a little lacklusting for me.

Magus · 10-22-2006, 08:37 PM

Do the same like me, just open the case and use a housefan, my videocard heat has gone from 70 half idle to 40

Choupolo · 10-22-2006, 08:57 PM

I'm using the AC one myself. It's tonnes better than the stock one in terms of noise, but I can't seem to use it much for OC'ing. I guess that's what you mean by lackluster. Still I'm happy with it so far.

Perhaps you could plumb in some watercooling instead? :P

Gazz · 10-22-2006, 09:12 PM

Well, even with stockcooling it isn't that difficult to get xtx speeds on your xt card. The whole problem is the alarming temp of your gpu if you do so.

I did look into some AC reviews and they seem to do the best job but that job is pretty dissapointing. I guess there's just a lack of competition in the 1900 cooler market and we are hurt by that.

Gazz · 10-22-2006, 09:39 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Magus@Oct 22 2006, 07:37 PM
Do the same like me, just open the case and use a housefan, my videocard heat has gone from 70 half idle to 40

No way, way too radical. Don't forget about all the dust having easy acces to your system. I did find someway too get some more cooling into my system. Since my old Zalman cooler didn't fit on my new AM2 mobo and I have a standard cooler now I ordered this one which also blows air onto the bottom of my videocard keeping it cooler and dustfree I hope

10-23-2006, 11:20 AM

Thats going to be blowing hot air from the CPU and heatsink all over the back of your Radeon. I would have the fan aligned to the back of the case so it vents straight out and doesnt heat up any other components.

In terms of VGA cooling, I used an Arctic Cooling ATI 4 Rev.2 VGA Silencer and some new thermal paste on my old Radeon and it worked a treat. My core temps went from 70 to 30. At the moment I am using stock cooling on my 7800GTX EE and I have had no need to overclock it. If I need to before my next upgrade, I will probably trust the Arctic kit again, seeing as it worked so well first time around.

LoneStrider · 10-24-2006, 12:36 AM

Let me tell you a little story: Me and My Geforce 6800GT

ME was really happy when he bought that expensive 6800GT. after a while, he wanted to overclock the thing. He became pretty handy in it. Unfortunately, the XFX stock cooler was way too noisy and did not cool enough. Me did research and found out that the AC for the 6800 was the way to go. He read the manual after purchase, and did everything he had to do. Step 4: turn the screws into position with your thumb and index finger, after applying the cooler unit onto the greased gpu surface. he put the thing into his computer and booted. everything went fine, and damn, it didn't make any noise at all! what a difference! he checked the tempurature gauge and omg! it was 120 CELSIUS! while the pc should've slowed down, it didn't. Me turned the computer off and checked what was wrong. me took the cooling unit of, and saw to his surprise that the gpu only made contact for one quarter to the cooler! so lesson he learned, before it got blown up at least: always use tools too tighten your screws!

:P

GM, are you telling me that Heat Paste did that?

10-24-2006, 01:20 AM

Quote:

GM, are you telling me that Heat Paste did that?

No an Arctic Cooling ATI 4 Rev.2 VGA Silencer. I editted my earlier post already.

Gazz · 10-24-2006, 01:48 AM

Well, there's no denying that there are a lot of great cooling solutions for videocards. That's why I find it to be so strange that the fastest line of singlecore videocards at the market right now doesn't have a decent aircooler that can easily lower the temperature. I still have a Radeon 9800 pro with an Artic cooler aswell that does wonders in my servercomputer. It just seems so odd that the most current line doesn't have a real choise in coolers that can drop the extremely high temps I have now.

Oh, in case someone starts to fuss about the 1900 series not being the best out there now... Fine, get a Nvidia and ignore all recent benchmarks based on the latest drivers from both manufacturers, they will dissappoint you after your purchase.