After market cooler for the ATI 5850

[darckhart]

@boxrick did you use two vf1000 for your 2x5850? if so can you take a pic? i'm worried about having enough space between the two cards. also curious about the vrm temps.

[Garrett]

I'm curious as well, and what voltages and speeds do you run boxrick??

[boxrick]

here is the bad picture and you can barely see anything




When i placed the 2 cards next to each other one of them got very hot and was unstable, so i used the top PCI-E slot in my motherboard and the long MSI crossfire cable to connect them, the standard ATI one wasnt long enough. This eliminated any temp problems.






Here are some temps from a single card before i installed the second, the second card barely added any temperature anyway.

Idle with fan and case fans on low (virtually silent)



With full load after running a 2560 x 1600 borderlands at high settings for 10 mins with overclocked GPU / CPU. GPU volts @ 1.25 ( increase from 1.085 stock). Fan speed on high.











http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sXcoZj7fwU

[Kain665]

Huh... I use a pair of TTPs with stock plates and even though my core temps are similar, my VRM temps get up to the high 70s with only 1.2v...

[darckhart]

cool, so it does work with both of them, but might need to watch for temps. think i'll be getting them then =) thx boxrick!

[Garrett]

Thanks man, appreciate it
Good to see that you don't need to cut or bend any fins on the Zalman or whatever... just install and go

How is the noise anyway?

PS I really liked the YouTube vid, though you do need some extra practice with the game lol

[yenclas]

Hello boxrick,

these VRM temps are great. But have you air flow direct to VRM ? I'm planning to buy an aftermarket cooler for this card and I'm seeing that all solutions have problems with VRM temps but you don't.

(sorry by my bad English)

[Garrett]

yenclas he uses the original backplate, that definitely helps

[yenclas]

yenclas he uses the original backplate, that definitely helps

Thanks Garrett.

Finally, VF1000 seems to be best choice for aftermarket cooler with this card. Is it true ?

[boxrick]

Thanks man, appreciate it
Good to see that you don't need to cut or bend any fins on the Zalman or whatever... just install and go

How is the noise anyway?

PS I really liked the YouTube vid, though you do need some extra practice with the game lol

Noise is silent in low mode and fairly noisy when turned up, and that youtube vid was practically my first play whilst making sure the camera was working.

One thing i will note is that i would advise against installing 2 of these unless you have good airflow / or keeping them apart as i do.

To fit the second 5850 into my case i had to bend the second "foot" which is designed to go into the slot to secure it in, simply because my case was not expecting a gpu so high up. I believe this is just an issue with my case.

[boxrick]

May i ask, which of the above is the VRM temps and what is an "unsafe" level for my VRM, my recent "Idle" temps seem to have gone up a little bit due to ATI fiddling with the drivers for a much higher system idle speed (10.x(5) v2 i am currently using ) this has fixed the "flickering" issues many people are seeing using multiple monitors though.

[yenclas]

May i ask, which of the above is the VRM temps and what is an "unsafe" level for my VRM, my recent "Idle" temps seem to have gone up a little bit due to ATI fiddling with the drivers for a much higher system idle speed (10.x(5) v2 i am currently using ) this has fixed the "flickering" issues many people are seeing using multiple monitors though.

Hello boxrick,


Which temps have you with new drivers including idle and full load ? GPU and VRM temps please.

Thanks !

[darckhart]

@boxrick: vrm temp is VDDC Phase #x. under load, most of us see it 60-90, maybe higher. yours seem quite low comparatively, although in your screen, gpu load is only 39%.

im gonna have to get vf1000 because my two cards are gonna be squashed right next to each other since only pcie1 and 2 are x16.

[yenclas]

@boxrick: vrm temp is VDDC Phase #x. under load, most of us see it 60-90, maybe higher. yours seem quite low comparatively, although in your screen, gpu load is only 39%.

im gonna have to get vf1000 because my two cards are gonna be squashed right next to each other since only pcie1 and 2 are x16.

Yes. Can you boxrick see VRM temps at 100% gpu load ? With furmark ?

[Garrett]

VDDC temps are the VRM temps boxrick... unsafe is 120 and up if I'm not mistaking, I can't imagine that you'd get temps THAT high with the original stock plate in place anyway... and FurMark... I say screw it, there's no game that loads the cards as heavily as FurMark does... I don't even bother downloading it

My airflow is fine, Antec Big Boy 200mm modded into my side panel blowing directly on the cards, my cousin has 2x 140mm in his side panel, that helps too but I prefer my own solution

What I especially like about the Zalman VF1000 coolers is that your cards are STILL dual slot and NOT triple slot like when you install a Musashi or a Twin Turbo (pro and non pro)

Imagine Triple CrossfireX with 3 Zalman VF1000 coolers

[muggy]

Thanks Garrett.

Finally, VF1000 seems to be best choice for aftermarket cooler with this card. Is it true ?

Well, there's definitely other options, Prolimatech, Thermalright, and Scythe seems to have pretty decent solutions.

Zalman themselves are coming out with a new cooler for ATI and NVIDIA cards, VF3000.

Zalman Link

Test Results

Random Video with music

Looks pretty nice, will be for sale soon I think. Probably not the best option for crossfire for most motherboards though.

[Necetra]

The Setsugen fits. Setsugen keeps the core usually in the 60-70s when gaming. Furmark sends it to the high 80s. Also, the Thermalright VRM-R4 is amazing. VRM furmark temps hover in the 50s, I haven't seen them hit 60 yet.

[ryboto]

I recently purchased a reference 5850 and a Trad2-GTX. In an upcoming build I will be restricted to a dual slot cooler, and with 12mm scythe fans, the trad2 is just about a 2 slot cooler. It installs fine, fit is perfect, but the VRM cooling is the issue. I wont be able to use thermalrights VRM coolers for this card, since there wont be space for it behind the video card.

The only alternatives I see are mounting some enzotech sinks, or use the ones thermalright provides with some thermal adhesive paste. The only other alternative is Zalman heatsinks. Zalman made a RHS70 heatsink for the 4890 vrms, and it would fit perfectly on the 5850, only issue is that it's 1.3cm too tall, so I'd have to cut the fins, or bend it. Then there's the issue of having the lone vrm chip near the x-fire connectors that I'd still have to use a different heatsink for. The other option, but most likely not viable is somehow getting the vrm heatsinks used in the Zalman VF3000A. They're cut perfectly for the 5850/5870, and they even made one for the lone VRM chip.

Anyone have any ideas I haven't thought of? Stock backplate doesn't fit with the Trad, the heatpipes get in the way.

[Garrett]

Well I tried a VF1000 on the bottom card here... not much luck, during COD4 (heavily shader dependant game) I've seen 70c max on the bottom card, which is usually the coolest of the 2, with the Twin Turbo it reaches 60c, that's it...
that's with both the VF1000 and the Twin Turbo @ 100% fan speed...

[Malik]

What about this cooler: LINK ? Someone test it ?

[Garrett]

Yes, it owns
If I run 1.20v 950Mhz and put the fanmate to lowest (5v) then temp doesn't go above 60c when gaming
That's with a 180mm intake fan blowing fresh air on it @ 700 rpm
(using stock plate from 5850 as well, not the stupid Zalman sinks... they always tend to fall off bah)

[Stoner@Large]

so the vf3000a will work with the stock plate with no clearance issues?

[Garrett]

Yes!
No problems or anything

Check my photo:
http://www.plaatjesupload.nl/bekijk/...512678-270.jpg

[Malik]

Looks nice

[insaneninjaguy]

The fan on my stock cooler for the His HD5850 is starting to fail. I scrolled though the last 5 pages. I am seeing Zalman's VF3000A would one of the better 3rd party cooling for this card.

I currently have have the fan speed at 20% to keep from grinding to bad, but temps at idle are up wards of 58c for GPU.