Best (quietest) aftermarket 5870 cooler?

[watercooled]

Gaming with a headset on, it's OK, but if I'm running GPGPU apps the XFX cooler is driving me nuts, so what's the best cooler I can get for a reasonable price? I may get around to watercooling one day but in the mean time, I was thinking something like this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0032FAM4...SIN=B0032FAM4Y

I'm also a little nervous about working with the bare GPU die, any tips/experience would be much appreciated.

[Terbinator]

Recently swapped a 3rd market Gelio cooler onto my GTX480 and isn't much different from a standard CPU cooler, really.

It was fairly painless for the most part, the one thing which was a piss take was sticking the RAM and VRM heatsinks on. Whilst i can't speak for the cooler in your link, be prepared for a very tedious peeling and sticking process.

Edit: Mine actually looks very similar to the one in the link - probably the same OEM at the core.

[Phage]

Same problem here.
All it needs is a pair of wings.

[watercooled]

And you have two of them! :O

I have the axial fan version, I have no idea why they replaced the reference cooler with this one.

[Phage]

On the plus side, they keep my toes warm on cold evenings.

[watercooled]

It seems the cooler I linked has poor VRM cooling on a 5870, allowing >100C temps.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Same problem here.
All it needs is a pair of wings.

Pour some Red Bull on to it!!

Runs away\

[dfour]

Watercool it

Sorry couldnt resist that considering your name

[watercooled]

I know, I should meet the expectations of my tag. Like I said I might get around to it one day but I'd have a hard time justifying the cost/time/effort involved as I don't plan on overclocking, I just want a reasonably quiet system.

I'm a bit annoyed with how poor aftermarket cooler design seems to be, neglecting VRM/RAM cooling with a few cheap aluminium heatsinks thrown in as an afterthought. On the other hand, waterblocks generally directly cool all of these components so why not make a decent air cooler the same way? I'm looking at £40 for a cooler which may or may not mount properly, then another £20 for reasonable VRM cooling. I'd probably be better off putting that money aside, waiting for the next gen of cards to roll out and put it towards one with a good cooler...

I really had better expectations of GPU coolers TBH, but from what I've seen, most are years old, lots have poor mounting kits causing the cooler to not sit on the GPU properly and none seem to cool the board components properly.

[Terbinator]

What about this one?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Arctic-Cooli...0004047&sr=1-3

My uncle has the same one on his 480 (still fits a 5870) which i'd say is better than mine personally.

TBH it isn't the poor aftermarket coolers that bother me - its the snide reference designs that do!

[watercooled]

Yeah I'm reading up on that one now, but it still only mounts with 4 screws and doesn't look to have great VRM cooling.

I dislike the fans used on reference coolers, but the actual heatsink design is usually good; the plate contacts all of the hot components so it doesn't allow the VRM to reach ~110C like these aftermarket ones all seem to.

I may try to bodge a couple of decent fans onto the stock heatsink, at least I know there won't be any hot spots then.

[Phage]

Sttrange I have these two.
http://forums.hexus.net/pc-hardware/...eck-5870s.html
And the newer cooler is practically silent. I certainly can't hear it over the WHOOSH of the reference.

[watercooled]

Yeah this is the one I have.


Hmm, there could be something up with the fan but it just sounds loud, not like a faulty sound or anything. In gaming it's not too bad, combined with a headset it's not really noticeable but with some compute apps the fan ramps to 60-70%.

If you have a minute could you set yours to that speed and see what you think? (If you still have them installed)

[Phage]

Not till I get home I'm afraid.
But sure...

[jim]

When I looked into this ages ago, the Accelero design that Terbinator linked to was easily the best.

Massive pain to fit in some of the designs (I think the 4870X2 in particular was bad), but very cool and very quiet.

[watercooled]

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.