Best (quietest) aftermarket 5870 cooler?

[jim]

It's what I'm leaning towards but I keep reading reports of rubbish thermal tape allowing heatisnks to fall off or being a pain to install. And the VRM cooler performs terribly on the 5870, but it's not surprising when you look at it - it makes contact with the thermal pad with the edges of some fins, not a flat plate, it's also pretty small for the amount of heat the VRM chucks out. I think I'd have to get one of these too, as shown here, but we're talking ~£60 now, provided I didn't have to spend more if anything didn't go to plan.

You'd almost be better off buying a faster card and underclocking it if you're talking about spending that much!

[watercooled]

That's what I mean, I'll probably just hang on until upgrading and spend a bit more (probably a fair bit less than £60) on a card with a decent cooler. Don't get me wrong I don't need it to be silent under load, but at 70% fan, the card I have now is simply obnoxious.

[jim]

That's what I mean, I'll probably just hang on until upgrading and spend a bit more (probably a fair bit less than £60) on a card with a decent cooler. Don't get me wrong I don't need it to be silent under load, but at 70% fan, the card I have now is simply obnoxious.

I owned a pair of 4870s in crossfire, so trust me, I know about noisy graphics cards

I had to leave the side off the case to stop them cutting out from overheating.

[Ross1]

I love the arctic cooling accelero's. They work incredibly well. Yes, they can be pain to install and the little heatsinks dont stick on very well, but they are minor issues compared to the massive improvement over the stock coolers you get.