4870 Waterblock Options

[dnottis]

can you leave the fan, but take the HS from the U601, just to see if it makes any difference?

Sure will - tonight I'll post results

[gabe]

Sure will - tonight I'll post results

great! thanks. that'll put this to bed once and for all.

[dnottis]

great! thanks. that'll put this to bed once and for all.

Ok so I removed the sink - kept the 50mm on there, Furmark ran ok. Removed the little 50mm fan grabbed a med speed yate loon, screwed on a fan grill and put this over the ass end of the card. Ran this - the VRM temps were a few deg lower than the 50mm was keeping it. Looks like those little 3 on the bottom are really the culiprits but they need alot of air. Without air the heatsinks get about 150 deg F - as per my handheld thermal gauge. They were burning my fingers and I couldnt hold it on there long. Alot of air is absolutely necessary - a little wont cut it. Also, the ram gets damn hot too during furmark.

[dnottis]

new everest beta -
http://www.lavalys.com/beta/everestu...axy7stgf2c.zip

[evilrad]

Ok so I removed the sink - kept the 50mm on there, Furmark ran ok. Removed the little 50mm fan grabbed a med speed yate loon, screwed on a fan grill and put this over the ass end of the card. Ran this - the VRM temps were a few deg lower than the 50mm was keeping it. Looks like those little 3 on the bottom are really the culiprits but they need alot of air. Without air the heatsinks get about 150 deg F - as per my handheld thermal gauge. They were burning my fingers and I couldnt hold it on there long. Alot of air is absolutely necessary - a little wont cut it. Also, the ram gets damn hot too during furmark.

Can you tell/show us exactly which "3" you are referring to? I appreciate you running all these test to find the problem

[dnottis]

Can you tell/show us exactly which "3" you are referring to? I appreciate you running all these test to find the problem

There are 5 small VRMs, they all need air and sinks. The Pulse and Vitec chips do not need sinks but airflow.

[jonny_ftm]

All this seems to say that GPU only WB won't be a good deal for such a card if you have to keep a high speed fan just dedicated for it

[dnottis]

All this seems to say that GPU only WB won't be a good deal for such a card if you have to keep a high speed fan just dedicated for it

yea, but I had the same crashing with the stock cooler - which means a full cover block would need to actually have the water move over the VRMs.

EK doesn't even have water going over the VRMs -
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...&postcount=147

[dnottis]

Do you guys notice if the memory gets really hot on your cards during Furmark?

[Eastcoasthandle]

I've noticed in games that the VRM goes up to around 50C. While GPU only goes up a few C. I honestly wouldn't worry about Furmark as it really doesn't represent the kind of stress your video card will experience in most games.

[jonny_ftm]

I've noticed in games that the VRM goes up to around 50C. While GPU only goes up a few C. I honestly wouldn't worry about Furmark as it really doesn't represent the kind of stress your video card will experience in most games.

I agree, but...
It's like asking someone to use a processor crashing after 10mn of prime95 because quiet no program will stress it that much

For me, it's hard to get a product that won't be able to work when it is asked to do at 100%

But surely, for many people outside XS and overclocking forums, it won't be a problem since they never heard of Für. That's maybe 90% of PC users

[dnottis]

My VRM idles aboout 50c with huge heatsinks and airflow. RTHDRIBL load it to about 80c. Games its about 70c. Then again we dont even know how accurate the Everest sensor reading is.

Im with Johnny about stability - if its capable of crashing then thats more than enough for me to do something about it and address it. I can't just say oh well it's just Furmark.

[freakgeek1337]

Another good reason to just get a GTX260. Though I don't support one side or the other. I think they're both good, both have their pros, both have their cons.

[dnottis]

Another good reason to just get a GTX260. Though I don't support one side or the other. I think they're both good, both have their pros, both have their cons.

Not really, from what I've read alot of GTX 260 / 280 have problems with Furmark too. Why would you go with a slower card???

[Eastcoasthandle]

It was my understanding that the problem dnottis was having was vrm heat related with just Furmark.

Here's a pic of mine with the MP-01. Idle 32, load 38c. The only issue I have is Furmark will crash, always had even stock settings / cooling. Would get a black screen after about a minute. I can game for hours without an issue.

As long as he is able to keep it under control he should not have any problems. GPU-Z or Everest revealing temps offered more insight to the problem then Furmark. If your games are running fine then Furmark offers no tangible benefit. This is my take on the situation so far. If I missed something then my apology.

[gabe]

There are 5 small VRMs, they all need air and sinks. The Pulse and Vitec chips do not need sinks but airflow.

Correction? Pulse, Vitec, and U601 chips do not need sinking.

Sorry for being such stickler to details , and thanks a lot for testing this!

[babalouj]

Correction? Pulse, Vitec, and U601 chips do not need sinking.

Sorry for being such stickler to details , and thanks a lot for testing this!

I can confirm this finding also. The VRMs are monsters though, they are still pretty damn hot using my heatsink and a 120mm fan.

[dnottis]

This is where technology hurts. Make it smaller and smaller till you get a chip so small its hard to cool. Kinda like 45nm vs 65nm - my wolfdales all loaded higher than my 65nm quads. They keep shrinking everything to the point where there is a spot the size of the tip of a pen that you need to cool. If the VRMs had some more surface area they'd be easier to cool...

[dnottis]

It was my understanding that the problem dnottis was having was vrm heat related with just Furmark.


As long as he is able to keep it under control he should not have any problems. GPU-Z or Everest revealing temps offered more insight to the problem then Furmark. If your games are running fine then Furmark offers no tangible benefit. This is my take on the situation so far. If I missed something then my apology.

Furmark was the only issue I had however RTHDRIBL has done the black screen / led to me too. No game has however. Everything is good now though

[iandh]

I had to make the VRM sinks larger on this model compared to the 8800GT/GTS/9800GTX versions of my sinks.

I have been running my Visiontek on the stock heatspreader for probably two weeks along with an MCW60, with the stock blower removed (so no additional airflow other than my case's), and not a single hiccup. Although the board as a whole runs toasty, all the components seem to be reasonably uniform in temperature. Nothing I would call out of hand.

Perhaps I have a cooler running card, also with issues like this it is very hard to draw the line between testing and intended use. As mentioned before, a particular stress test may push a card to the bleeding edge and over it. It is possible that this card is only certified to something like 80% power draw @ full duty cycle... also hard for me to say how furmark compares to the testing methods that ATI uses to call a card "good".

[MrMojoZ]

Another good reason to just get a GTX260. Though I don't support one side or the other. I think they're both good, both have their pros, both have their cons.

Some guys trying really hard to justify 260/280 purchases on this forum.

[dnottis]

Sadly my HD4870 died tonight. I got some corruption while playing MOHA, then back at the desktop it just went green with some lines. RIP.

[IN7OX]

will this cover all critical areas
http://ekwaterblocks.com/shop/produc...roducts_id=289

[Dangals]

will this cover all critical areas
http://ekwaterblocks.com/shop/produc...roducts_id=289

I sure hope so as I already have one on order!

[jonny_ftm]

Sadly my HD4870 died tonight. I got some corruption while playing MOHA, then back at the desktop it just went green with some lines. RIP.

Oh, sorry for you. That was the second card or the one you wanted to RMA?
So heat could kill those cards. Any one used to electronics knows that even if some circuits are built to run at 125°C, they will for sure die quicker than if ran at 60°C or 55°C

One more reasone not to cut original heatsink, or your RMA will be voided

Maybe also mounting/unmounting without electrostatic protection killed your card