I've had time to play with the 60 some more.
The mount is possible because the spacing of the holes that fasten the MCW60 housing to the base plate is exactly the same as the 4870x2 mounting holes. note that this does not apply to the 3870X2 unfortunately, as the card mounting holes are 1mm less center to center distance than those of the 4870X2. so I'd say we really lucked out on that one since the 4870 is expected to have much more success than the 3870 (sorry 3870 owners).
For testing purposes, we found it possible to buy off-the-shelf hardware to install the 60 (original or rev 2 doesn't matter) on the 4870X2. the final hardware that we will release will be customized to ease the assembly for the average user, but for those of you who cannot wait until we come out with this mounting pack, here is the shopping list.
(4) 2-56 x 7/8" socket head cap screws
(4) 2-56 nuts
(4) #2 x 3/16 OD washer
(4) 2-56 thumb nuts
(4) pcs 0.250" long of insulation stripped from 12 AWG electrical wire
note1: 2-56 screws are necessary to be able to re-use the ATI GPU braces (highly recomended)
note 2: insulation is needed to center the screw in the water-block holes
all the hardware is available at
www.mcmaster.com
Re. memory and mosfet cooling
I could have peppered the card with MC14's, MC21's and what have you, but it occured to me that since I was re-using the GPU braces, I could also re-use the back-plate, and why not, the front plate. The back-plate required no mods whatsoever, but the front plate required a little bit of machining to provide clearance for the two 60's. I did that on the CNC, but I think that this is also easily feasible with a dremel tool.
The above solution is also interesting from a testing standpoint, since it will demonstrate that the stock "heatsinks" (if you can call them that), actually let's call them plates, that the stock plates allow the card to run flawlessly without even the fan plugged in (and without the cover). In effect, I decided to test the unit without the fan, which is worse case scenario, and let it run under furry cube for hours to see what would happen.
Here is the modified assembly without the 60's, and the card with the 60's installed. Note that I have two different sizes of fittings on that pic because I wanted to show that it is possible to install 1/2" fittings by recutting the pins directly underneath the fittings and the card was getting ready to go to the bench, which uses 3/8" tubing.
Finally here is a screen shot of the temps under furry cube load (37C) . Also note that as usual on our bench, the coolant temperature is kept at a 30C constant.
Altogether, this looks pretty good. Now we have to design a true aftermarket heatsink for the card, which we'll begin to do next week.
This information concludes my participation to this thread for the time being, as I now have to get busy with engineering, among other things. Please be patient, and don't PM me with questions, as I won't be able to answer until we advance further into this project.
One last thing to the modders out there: I haven't done it yet, but I think it is ALSO possible to re-use the stock cover by grinding the upper portion of the lips of the 60 inlet/outlet (about 2mm interference), as well as cutting four holes to allow passage for the fittings/tubing. I'll try that if I find enough time to have some fun..
