Sonic Tower on x1900xt *56k*

[biohead]

I could't really overclock my x1900xt with a vf900-cu. It just got too hot, uber-airflow or not. So I'm the next one to be putting a CPU heatsink on a VGA.

I decided to use Thermaltake's Sonic Tower..



..because I only have about 7.5cm of space between the VGA and PCI-card. Heatpipes are easy to bend (really) so this cooler was just perfect. My plan was to bend the 'towers' so they both would be facing away from the mainboard. It worked out pretty well.

The heatsink can take tons of load, but the problem is getting good airflow to remove the heat. First I only put some 80mm casefans on it, thinking that would be enough with such an uberheatsink. At low volts that worked 'okay' but with higher volts the GPU temp just didn't stop rising, it was going up a straight line. So it was obvious that the heatsink was slowly heating up, 'half-passively'.

Though this bad-airflow setup still got me these results:

675/800 1.4vGPU Load ATITool artifact scanner
vf900-cu - Sonic Tower
73°C - 43°C

Not bad at all! It would instantly 'skyrocket' to only 39-40°C and then take a few minutes to finally settle at 43°C.

For real overclocking I needed some serious volts and some serious airflow. So I did, just see the pics below.

My results:

750/846 with 1.575/2.056/2.151/1.580: 58°C load ATITool artifact scanner(actually initially settles at 55°C but slowly warms up - an indication that airflow could be better).

Keep in mind that these results aren't the best I can get. For instance the base isn't lapped and I could've mounted it better (by accident I shifted the base a few times after applying some Ceramique and trying to mount - kind of a struggle). So maybe I can improve the temps by lapping it and remounting it securely.

Enough chitchat, on to the pics!

(btw the 120mm fan is an enermax 12FAB 80cfm and the 80x38mm fan is a delta that pushes around 80cfm also, but at 50ish dB )





























The damn thing looks like some kind of canon lol :x

Cheers

[tjelaw]

lol what thef ck

[DTU_XaVier]

So you're saying you just bent the heat-pipes?? Aren't they at risk of breaking without heating, or was it easy??
ING! awesome mod though... Looks great bent like that

Best Regards

[Bail_w]

lol what a waste, dude you could have just grab a stock amd heatsink.

[Timmay]

That's so many different kinds of awesome! Love it...

[biohead]

hey thanks!

yep just bent them with my bare hands. just be careful where to apply the pressure. both heatpipes seem to be working

[biohead]

lol what a waste, dude you could have just grab a stock amd heatsink.

you miss the point, this is more fun man. a stock amd/intel sink probably won't fit anyway.

[Shift]

Ok yeah someone just put a Tuniq on a 8800GTX already


Awesome project , and I gotta say that is a nice bowl of assorted fruit right there. Makes me hungry

[PowerSlide]

one awesome mod

n the biggest vga cooler on planet?

[_Eduard_]

Don't make me use my TT120

[biohead]

bump, this thread isn't done yet.

this is me showing off.

[KoHaN69]

I couldnt tell from the pics- do you have something supporting it up (itself?)
it's not just "hanging" from the the card now is it?!

[biohead]

thought u'd never ask the heatsink actually sits on my tv-card,
http://members.lycos.nl/simz4ever2/s...a/PICT0116.jpg
which isn't anything fancy and it's still working as it should. But surprisingly, even without a card there (to 'support' it) the vga doesn't bend much at all.
Anyway my x1900xt seems to be totally straight so I'm happy.

[dinos22]

how much more improvement did you get

interesting DIY case there

[biohead]

probably around 35°C improvement over the vf900-cu, I could't go higher than 1.4v with that tiny thing lol.

btw dinos (old) case pics in sig

[Kasparz]

Wow, nice case

[Modzilla]

yes, nice custom case

[AgentVX]

Oh dear God that is insane. I thought the Zalman 9500 one was Xtreme but yours really takes the cake.

[Mr. Peanut]

Nice job. Let's see some temp readouts/clock speeds next!

[Stx]

zomg, tis nuts, well done though

[jamex]

you miss the point, this is more fun man. a stock amd/intel sink probably won't fit anyway.

Maybe watercooling would be more fun and better cooling?? But still its amazaing you manage to put that big fu...r on the video card!!

[alexio]

Looks like two aluminium guys having butsex. Never seen that before.

[LittleDevil]

Good modification!

thanks

[roadie]

Wow, that is a hell of a mod! How is it attached to the card, and how wide is your case?

[Ad Rock]

You should make a thread for that case, it looks very interesting. Seems like you put a lot of thought and detail into the case as well.