4870 Waterblock Options

[Think]

Watching the advance here. Got the Dtek waterblock and heatsink and going to dangle with some of the suggestions here.

Subscribed.

[peterpiper]

Very intersting stuff! I have all the bits to install two mcw60's on a pair of Crossfired 4870's. I was thinking about bending tube and kinks between waterblocks, when I decided to research a bit more. Maybe it's worth buying FC Waterblocks. Cost of Blocks v cost of New Cards. Two Cards in CF don't leave a lot of room for Air movement!

[holwill]

I ran my 4870 on a MCW60R with swifty ramsinks on the ram and the 3 pulse chips, also the small alu heatsinks swifty do where on the pwm's and a 120mm fan blowing over the card, for the last 3 weeks. Although the gpu core temps where very good (32 idle-42 loaded) the same could not be said for the vrm's(idle 52), which I started another thread about. I was seeing in Crysis and Jericho 102-103c, Grid,Mass Effect,GOW mid 90s,COD4,Bioshock mid to high 80s and the usual furmark 126c within 60 sec's.
I was not really comfortable with this and in the end I bit the bullet and brought a EK FC block, which I am not a fan of due to loss of value and to me high premium of price, also the talk of restriction. However I really must say how impressed I am with it, there is no noticable restriction over the mcw60 in fact cpu temps appear to have dropped by 1 or 2 degree's when loaded, however there may other factors affecting this. But the vrm,s are being cooled much more effectively idle temps are 39-40, gpu core is the same 32c, but I am seeing no more than 63c in Crysis and Jericho, high and los 50s in the other games I mentioned above, so a drop of about 40c across the board. Furmark is now not even getting above 73c where as before it would hit 126c before 75 percent of the test(see screenie)and to be honest I am seeing lower gpu temps.



I think this is one instance in which a Fc block is maybe needed, to protect your card.

[KoHaN69]

sorry to go offtopic, but did u guys see what biohead did?
http://www.xtremesystems.org/Forums/...7&postcount=36

maybe some mosfet cooler from thermalright might work on 4870/4850:
http://www.thermalright.com/new_a_pa...et_cooler.html

[Unrealer]

maybe some mosfet cooler from thermalright might work on 4870/4850:
http://www.thermalright.com/new_a_pa...et_cooler.html

Or this:

http://www.performance-pcs.com/catal...ducts_id=24175



http://www.performance-pcs.com/catal...ducts_id=24176

[holwill]

I thought about doing something along those lines,but took the easier option as even with a 120mm fan sat ontop it had little effect.

[lyl]

Good info holwill, do you have any pics of the FC installed?

[jonny_ftm]

Definately the GPU only solutions should be banned for now until some unisinks are available

[holwill]

Good info holwill, do you have any pics of the FC installed?

Sure mate will pull the side off and take some pic's laterz.

[lyl]

Sure mate will pull the side off and take some pic's laterz.

Cool thanks.

I am deciding between getting the EK fc and waiting on Thermaltake's T-Rad2... The VRMS will get airflow from the looks of it.

[dejanh]

HR-09 Type 2 has already been done in conjunction with an HR-03 GT with great success. However, mounting it is not easy. Check it out here...

http://www.clunk.org.uk/forums/user-...hd-4870-a.html

[holwill]

That is definitely one way of doing it.

[holwill]

There you go lyl excuse the crap camera and idiot behind it

[Lome]

ati underclocking when furmark detected. whats wrong with these cards?

http://www.geeks3d.com/?p=1106

[twwen2]

The suggestion seems to be that Furmark loads the cards well above any real-world usage scenario, leading to dangerous temps that would not likely be seen elsewhere; and so AMD downclocks the cards for safety's sake.

[Fir3^StorM]

Or this:

http://www.performance-pcs.com/catal...ducts_id=24175



http://www.performance-pcs.com/catal...ducts_id=24176

or, IMO a cheaper solution might be this, as it's tall enough and would probably manage to dissipate enough heat
(although it's not Cu, and would require some cutting to properly fit)

[Lome]

so what happenes when a game comes that does the same as furmark? we should downclock our cards to avoid damaging them?

[MrMojoZ]

so what happenes when a game comes that does the same as furmark? we should downclock our cards to avoid damaging them?

Not going to happen in the liftetime of these cards.

[Marco André]

Both waterblocks from AC and EK perform very well. I think EK won for about 3ºC in full load (need to check my notes )

If anyone need i can upload some pics.

[Yozzman]

Both waterblocks from AC and EK perform very well. I think EK won for about 3ºC in full load (need to check my notes )

If anyone need i can upload some pics.

Every pic helps!
So yes pls!

[lyl]

There you go lyl excuse the crap camera and idiot behind it

Thanks! I have a similar case (BTX) so that gives me a great idea of what it would be like

[dejanh]

I've been posting for weeks now how it looks like there are major issues with 4870 VRM cooling and/or the overall power design...some listened, some did not...now we have official confirmation...

...sadly ATI just "glazes" over this by hacking the driver and not fixing a problem...

Now again, I will care to reiterate over all of the threads that I have been posting in related to this...

This thread is a pretty good collection of all the places I have posted about this already (see first post)... http://forums.tweaktown.com/f31/diam...edition-27348/

I really want to hear some opinions...

[Sparky]

I've been posting for weeks now how it looks like there are major issues with 4870 VRM cooling and/or the overall power design...some listened, some did not...now we have official confirmation...

...sadly ATI just "glazes" over this by hacking the driver and not fixing a problem...

Now again, I will care to reiterate over all of the threads that I have been posting in related to this...

This thread is a pretty good collection of all the places I have posted about this already (see first post)... http://forums.tweaktown.com/f31/diam...edition-27348/

I really want to hear some opinions...

I have been under the impression that with stock cooling things are fine. Bit hot because they set the fan really low, but it is ok. Just when you get into aftermarket cooling you may have problems, but that of course is not ATI's fault.

[dejanh]

I have been under the impression that with stock cooling things are fine. Bit hot because they set the fan really low, but it is ok. Just when you get into aftermarket cooling you may have problems, but that of course is not ATI's fault.

No, even stock cooling has issues. That's the problem. You should try it on the stock cooled 4870. Unless your ambients are low and your fan speed is very high (like 90%+) running FurMark for a bit will most likely crash your card even at stock speeds. Even if you do not crash by some chance, running your VRMs to 125C+ is outside their operating range so you can expect failure any time. So far I have tested a bunch of 4870s trying to get to the bottom of this problem all with the same results. Changing VRM cooling though to something nuts like the mobo HR-09S Type 2 MOSFET sink stops the crashes and lowers the VRMs to a nice 80-ish celsius.

[Blkout]

No, even stock cooling has issues. That's the problem. You should try it on the stock cooled 4870. Unless your ambients are low and your fan speed is very high (like 90%+) running FurMark for a bit will most likely crash your card even at stock speeds. Even if you do not crash by some chance, running your VRMs to 125C+ is outside their operating range so you can expect failure any time. So far I have tested a bunch of 4870s trying to get to the bottom of this problem all with the same results. Changing VRM cooling though to something nuts like the mobo HR-09S Type 2 MOSFET sink stops the crashes and lowers the VRMs to a nice 80-ish celsius.

There's nothing wrong with the 4870 in stock form. Get over it. If you don't like the 4800 series, go buy something else.