Aftermarket cooling on Sapphire HD4850

[Plantus]

I bought one of the original, single-slot versions of the Sapphire HD4850 last summer and have been putting up with the noisy stock fan since. However, I have gone to the effort of making the rest of my system quiet and figure I should really sort the GPU out too...

What can people recommend as an aftermarket cooling solution for this card? I would rather not spend any more than ~£20-25 and am relatively inexperienced when it comes to such things so as well as being quiet, the ease of fitting is important.

Whilst I have quite a lot of room in the case the airflow could be better so I would want to avoid passive cooling...

Thanks for your help!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The Akasa Vortexx Neo should do the trick:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Akasa/Vortexx

http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews.php?reviewid=604

At idle it was noisier than the stock dual slot cooler on my HD3870 but under load it was much quieter.

[Plantus]

Thanks Cat-the-fith!

I have been looking at reviews and it seems that people have not been able to connect the new fan to the card, instead using a fan connector on the mobo or just straight into the PSU. Someone please tell me if I am being an idiot, but looking at my Sapphire card surely the fan can just be connected using the same connection the stock fan uses?

Cheers

[Webby]

The fan header will be a different size (smaller on the graphics card) also the card will use PWM to control speed so the cooler may have issues with the supplied voltage.

Since from the reviews it is supposed to be very quiet I wouldn't worry about it running full pelt all the time, if its an issue for you hook it up to a motherboard fan header and control it via speedfan or similar software.

[Plantus]

Idiot for me it is then!

I take it that as SpeedFan does not register my GPU temps currently this is not something it is capable of doing? Just wish the all the card makers and cooler makers would bang their heads together and both use the same connectors...

[Pob255]

Yep the ATi Tool

[Plantus]

Yeah which is why I would want to connect the Vortexx fan to the card itself rather than the mobo so that CCC can manage fan speed dependent on GPU temps... As SpeedFan does not appear to register the GPU temp sensors there would be no way of linking the speed of the new fan to the actual temps. Not a problem if the Vortexx is as quiet as people say it is though...

[PwnDirect]

The vortexx is not silent but quiet enough. It also droped my 4850 temps by 20c at idle & load

[vicar]

Try the Zalman 1000 series they are silent enough.

[DDY]

Arctic Cooling Accelero S1 + 120mm fan.



Under £25, cools way better than the stock cooler and silent. The fan you see in the above picture is a cheap £5 Akasa job @ 5v, totally inaudible.

[LuckyNV]

Arctic Cooling Accelero S1 + 120mm fan.



Under £25, cools way better than the stock cooler and silent. The fan you see in the above picture is a cheap £5 Akasa job @ 5v, totally inaudible.

ditto with this, only real issue is the number of slots it eats

[Plantus]

Thanks for the ideas. Have actually decided to go with the accelero and should be getting it on tuesday. Will be a relief to no longer have a vacuum cleaner in my case when playing games...

[vicar]

Enjoy the silence.

[Plantus]

So just to update, fitted the Accelero S1 Rev 2 and attached a 120mm Nexus Real Silent fan. Temps have dropped from over 70 degrees idle to just 30 degrees idle. I haven't been able to push it over 39 degs yet when at load (@ 700/1140 MHz and 23 degs ambient).

Very happy!