4870 vrm cooling

[truehighroller]

I have mine rigged with some cheapo sinks and my temps never get over 74c under full load. Idle at about 50c. I will post pics later on when I get home. I have a thermalright gt on mine and it is the 1gb version so it deffinately puts out more heat then the 512 that I had the cooler on orginally. I have noticed how ever that my memory must be getting alot hotter because I could push easy 1160 with my 512 for the memory speeds and with this 1gb version I can only get 961~ after that it starts artifacting and I have to back it down real quick. The core on the other hand is alot stronger with this card because where as I used to only get 855 most from 512 version, I can get 871 with this one.. Again I will post pics tonight for eveyone. The one thing I noticed every one doing here that I am not is that you guys are sticking these heat sinks right on top of the voltage regulators where as I didn't. I have my heatsinks stuck on the things that are located right behind the voltage regulators and that is it. I also rigged a fan right on top of the voltage regulators and the sinks covering the things right behind them.

[Rattle]

if you water cool you cannot beat the stock plate unless you use a full cover block and I wouldnt do that unless the block was freeeee
these are normal room temps probably about 70F, idle state of all hardware.

[roofsniper]

lol i think i have the worst vrm temps ever with mine at 62C idle. at first i forgot to put sinks on the vrms and they are the same as they are now. i don;t think they are getting good enough airflow enough tho the t-rad is right over it. thats why i think the stock plate might work for me. i think the stock plate should do about just as good as i and h's sinks. his sinks look cool tho and are a lot smaller than the stock plate.

[Rattle]

you still need airflow, anyone thats tried the fan without the shroud can tell you like i can that its hardly audible at 40%, and I have 2 of them going at 40%, for some reason the shroud makes them SCREAAAM, if my room is WARM i see mid 60's vrms, usually though 55c loaded in a 68-72 room temp ambient with moderate oc's

[roofsniper]

well i have a side case fan that blows directly onto the card but the vrms are just outside of the fan so im pretty sure its getting nothing there. i have a fan in a sideways hdd rack as well that is running at 1200 rpm. so its getting some but not much from that but having that on does lower the temps by 2-3C. really theres nothing else i can do besides get another fan and put it inbetween the side of the case and the card but im not sure if that will fit and i really don't want to do that. and because i have the t-rad i can't use the stock plate with the fan still on.

[Rattle]

time to sell some stuff and swap up man !

[Reckless187]

I'm tempted to cut up some of the fins on my cooler just so I can fit the stock ATi fan onto the stock plate and then, when I want to game without the card overheating I could just knock the fan speed upto about 50%, who cares if it's noisy, I game with headphones on anyway. Infact, I'm gonna see if I can rotate the Musashi cooler 90 degrees to give me clearance to fit the stock fan on the plate!!!!!!!! Actually, I think the cooler would bottom out on the motherboard. May just cut the fins and remove the second fan on the cooler to accomodate the fitment of the Ati fan. Time to get the Dremel out. I post up some pics if I do the mod.

I also have 8 120mm fans in my case and 3 of them blow across the width of the mobo and one of em is only about 2 or 3 inch away from my gpu.

I think next time a new GPU comes out I'm gonna wait and see how good the card is at keeping itself cool before buying, may even have to buy my first nvidia card if this keeps up with Ati.

[truehighroller]

Ok I can't get the vrm temps to show up in GPU-Z now. I had to get rid of the hotfix drivers because they were not letting me get my overclock any more because they screwed up amd gpu clock tool or whatever it is called....... Now my damn vrm temps are not showing up in GPU-Z...... I looked in my everest and I don't see the vrm temp guys, do I have to add that sensor some how or what?? Thank guys. I will take a picture of my card and the cooler and heat sinks and what not and maybe by then some one will have come up with a quick solution for me to be able to see my vrm temps again..

[roofsniper]

I'm tempted to cut up some of the fins on my cooler just so I can fit the stock ATi fan onto the stock plate and then, when I want to game without the card overheating I could just knock the fan speed upto about 50%, who cares if it's noisy, I game with headphones on anyway. Infact, I'm gonna see if I can rotate the Musashi cooler 90 degrees to give me clearance to fit the stock fan on the plate!!!!!!!! Actually, I think the cooler would bottom out on the motherboard. May just cut the fins and remove the second fan on the cooler to accomodate the fitment of the Ati fan. Time to get the Dremel out. I post up some pics if I do the mod.

I also have 8 120mm fans in my case and 3 of them blow across the width of the mobo and one of em is only about 2 or 3 inch away from my gpu.

I think next time a new GPU comes out I'm gonna wait and see how good the card is at keeping itself cool before buying, may even have to buy my first nvidia card if this keeps up with Ati.

you would be better off buying a different cooler that can fit the stock plate with the fan on instead of modding the heatsink. also i have heard issues on the nvidia side as well but its not that big of a deal since many people with nvidia cards don't do aftermarket cooling. if only stock cooling was actually good instead of just being usable.

[truehighroller]

Ok no answer yet with my vrm gpu-z glitch but, here are my PICs,

Top View,



Another View "clearer picture",



Side View,



Best View I think,



Her in her home,



Picture of my temps "it started working again"?



There you go that is what my setup landed me. Oh and I am using Artic Silver Thermal Adhesive for the sinks to stick "good stuff".

[Reckless187]

you would be better off buying a different cooler that can fit the stock plate with the fan on instead of modding the heatsink. also i have heard issues on the nvidia side as well but its not that big of a deal since many people with nvidia cards don't do aftermarket cooling. if only stock cooling was actually good instead of just being usable.

I tested out the manual fan control in the 8.10 drivers at 100% and the gpu temp dropped to about 25C I think. That stock little fan at 50% may do a pretty decent job of cooling VRM's. I'm gonna test out the stock cooler without the shroud and with fan speed at about 40-50% to see if it does a better job than the aftermarket one. If it does then I'm selling the aftermarket cooler. If not, I'm gonna butcher the aftermarket cooler as I'm currently out of work with no cash left and what I did have left, I spen on a 24" monitor. I'll post up some results tommorow.

@Truehighroller - Love the ghetto fan mod, wish I could squeese a fan under my cooler.

[roofsniper]

I tested out the manual fan control in the 8.10 drivers at 100% and the gpu temp dropped to about 25C I think. That stock little fan at 50% may do a pretty decent job of cooling VRM's. I'm gonna test out the stock cooler without the shroud and with fan speed at about 40-50% to see if it does a better job than the aftermarket one. If it does then I'm selling the aftermarket cooler. If not, I'm gonna butcher the aftermarket cooler as I'm currently out of work with no cash left and what I did have left, I spen on a 24" monitor. I'll post up some results tommorow.

@Truehighroller - Love the ghetto fan mod, wish I could squeese a fan under my cooler.

yea of course the stock plate with fan does better. it does better even when it is cooling the gpu as well and when all the hot air is trapped under the plastic shroud. but i was getting 80C idle on my 4870 and i hate how the stock fan is loud on post and everything after i startup it kicks up in windows for a second for some reason. i was gonna recommend you the heatsink that high roller has and just cut the stock plate and put the fan there instead of cutting the cooler but really i think there can be a way to solve this issue without using extreme modding and spending a lot of money. i just haven't found it yet LOL. at least with atis next card it isn't a whole new architecture and is making the sps more powerful without adding new ones. i bet the new card will be cooler than the 4870 while being more powerful.

[sf rich]

And RV770 GPU is rated 126ºC. Many Core 2s are 105ºC.


Btw, "VRM" is a terribly vague term. It doesn't mean any specific component exactly. What you appear to refer to is the Vitec/Pulse inductor-pack that has a maximum operating temperature of 125ºC. They wont break immediately above 125ºC - their performance simply goes down the drain. The actual voltage converters the temperature readings in GPU-Z come from are the little dark grey rectangular chips and their max operating temp is NDA protected data so one would be well advised to keep them way below 100ºC...

Largon (or anyone else) I'd love to see some documentation on all the chips on the 4870 - which chip does what, which get hot (and therefore need cooling), etc. Anyone?

[roofsniper]

Largon (or anyone else) I'd love to see some documentation on all the chips on the 4870 - which chip does what, which get hot (and therefore need cooling), etc. Anyone?

i don't think there is any documentation but on some german forum someone used a heat camera and looked at the temperatures of the card during load. pretty much the vrms and gpu are the only issues. i know some people have tried cooling the back of the vrms on the back of the card but really i don't know how you would do that as theres no really anything there and really all you would be doing is cooling the pcb on the back of the card which shouldn't do too helpful.

[Reckless187]

yea of course the stock plate with fan does better. it does better even when it is cooling the gpu as well and when all the hot air is trapped under the plastic shroud. but i was getting 80C idle on my 4870 and i hate how the stock fan is loud on post and everything after i startup it kicks up in windows for a second for some reason. i was gonna recommend you the heatsink that high roller has and just cut the stock plate and put the fan there instead of cutting the cooler but really i think there can be a way to solve this issue without using extreme modding and spending a lot of money. i just haven't found it yet LOL. at least with atis next card it isn't a whole new architecture and is making the sps more powerful without adding new ones. i bet the new card will be cooler than the 4870 while being more powerful.

A few people who are using the stock plate with the stock fan have found it to be a lot quieter with the shroud off, gonna have to give it a go and see how much quieter it is.

My card used to spin up the stock fan randomly as well once windows was loaded up or if I started up GPU-Z etc, sounds software or driver related. I also get a 2 second black screen sometimes once Windows has loaded into the desktop. I've had that with all the Ati drivers.

@truehighroller - Have you got Crysis Warhead? If so, could you try it out at 1680 or 1920 resolution on Gamer or Enthusiast settings and use GPU-Z to log temps and then post back what VRM temps you are getting in game? If you have Far CRy 2 could you test that out at similar resolutions and settings? My VRM's hit 115C in 5 minutes.

[roofsniper]

i might be quieter with the shroud off but i don't think it would be a good idea. the point of the shroud is to make it so the air gets channeled from the fan across the card and without the shroud the fan will only be cooling the vrms and the heatsink on the gpu would not be getting direct airflow.

[Reckless187]

Yeah true, think I'll just leave things how they are and knock the settings down on the games instead. I tried out Crysis on Mainstream settings and the VRM's didn't overheat. I'm sick of constantly taking the card out the case and redoing the cooler!

[largon]

I've said this before, but; you people use way too small heatsinks on those hot Volterra chips.
No wonder things overheat if there's only a tiny RAM-sink on a chip that exhales ~10-20W.

[Tulatin]

I've said this before, but; you people use way too small heatsinks on those hot Volterra chips.
No wonder things overheat if there's only a tiny RAM-sink on a chip that exhales ~10-20W.

Yeah, shame on us for trying to save the HUGE heatsinks that the heatsink makers are putting in the packages for us to use on these chips.

[largon]

Yep. Shame on you.
Keywords are heatsink makers and [heatsink] packages.
There are tons of old CPU/GPU/whatever heatsinks out there just lying around that people could hacksaw into pieces and use them instead of the tiny, pathetic <10mm high RAMsinks. But no, for some reason people like actually to pay money for inferior stuff when they could get better stuff for paying ~nothing.

[Reckless187]

lol, definatey need bigger heatsinks on the VRM's, but even the stock 'HUGE' heatsinks the the heatsink makers are putting in the packages for us to use on these chips are crap at cooling, I was getting 115C temps on my VRM's with the stock cooler at which point the card would crash and I have about EIGHT 120mm fans in my case not including the 2 100mm fans on my aftermarker graphics cooler. Shame on us AND shame on the stock heatsink maker as well? :P

I get 30 - 60fps in Cysis Warhead at 1920 x 1200 on Enthusiast setting, great huh? The GPU can handle it but the VRM's can't. This was WITH the stock cooler mind. I used the same ram sinks that I used on the 3870 so I thought the 4870 might have been able to handle it as well but that was kinda stupid seeing as this is a more powerful card.

[roofsniper]

i am using the heatsinks that came with the t-rad. and the problem is that i really can't use any that are bigger because there is no room between the t-rad and the card. i could get wider heatsinks but not taller ones and the stock plate is a wide heatsink so it shows promise. just the connection between the plate and the vrms is a thermalpad.

[Reckless187]

I'm using the stock plate and it's made a slight difference but still not enough to totally cure the overheating VRMs. I wish I could get hold of a think enough copper plate from some where, then I could get my mate to knock up a copy onfthe stock plate as he as access to CNC, lathes and milling machines.

Or maybe just a copper shim between the plate and VRM's in place of the thermal pad might help?

[roofsniper]

Or maybe just a copper shim between the plate and VRM's in place of the thermal pad might help?

i was just about to say that before i saw u said it. the stock plate makes for one hell of a heatsink but it can't remove much heat from the vrms. maybe if you put some copper in there it might work. just get a small piece of copper and shave it down to size and put some tim on it and i bet the performance will be way better. but what i wanted to do from the start was make my own bolt on heatsink like i and h did but make it be much cheaper. what is the stock plate made out of anyway? steel?

[Reckless187]

I would have thought the stock plate is made out of aluminium. You can buy sheets of copper off ebay, cut a piece to size maybe a 1 or 2mm think peice and bung it in there. I could send the stock plate to my mate who could measure it up using this funky 3-D mapping tool, it's like a pen on the end of a robotic arm thingy (getting technical now) where you set a datum point and touch the pen around the object you want to map 3 dimensionally and it gives you all the correct dimesions for the item, then you load that into a CNC or milling machine and knock up a perfect copy! Anyone wanna donate a thick enough copper plate to make a copy out of? :p