EVGA GTX470 Owners: Get the High Flow Bracket for Free*

[H2O]

Bump: EVGA has extended the offer to owners of GTX480s as well.

[Carfax]

Mine are coming.. Has anyone tested these things yet to see if they work?

[SamHughe]

hmmm... do 480 owners get this benefit also?

wondering the same thing.

Yes. I just ordered one. Every degree of temp drop counts.

[H2O]

I just got mine today but I haven't put it on yet (don't think I will as my card is watercooled ATM) but from what I have been reading on the EVGA forums a 5C drop seems pretty realistic.

[WhiteFireDragon]

a little bracket like this reduces the overall core temps be 5C? that's a little hard for me to believe right now.

[SamHughe]

Mine arrived today so I did a little test:



As you can see there is little little difference between the two brackets. Can this "hi-flow" bracket really reduce temps 5C? We'll see.

SETUP
Card: eVGA GeForce GTX 480 SuperClocked (Stock speeds: core 725, memory 3800, shader 1450)
Driver: 257.21
Rest of the system: Check out my sig

Here's a picture of the system layout:
Please note that there is a physX card (9800 gtx+) installed right next to the GTX 480 so my results maybe little higher than most of you.



While I am at it, I also decided to check my good ol' 9800gtx+ which now serves as a physX card in my system.



Waddaya know! It didn't have a hi-flow bracket either (Are those wood screws I am seeing?). So, to test whether eVGA bracket bogus or the real deal, I have decided to create my own hi-flow bracket for the 9800gtx+. If this works, it should work for both cards (right?).

10 minutes quality time with my dremel and I got a home-made even higher-flow bracket.



TESTING METHODOLOGY
Average room temp 75F (23C)
Idle temps were measured after the system idled for 30 mins (temperatures settled for at least 10 minutes).
Load temps measured after a single 3dmark06 run. Temps taken right after the 3dmark06 run completed.
Temps were measured with eVGA Precision.
(I know my testing approach is very crude but we're measuring a relative performance here)

RESULTS

*Drumroll

GTX 480:
Low-flow: idle: 57c - load: 82c
Hi-flow: idle: 55c - load: 82c

9800 GTX+:
Low-flow: idle:63c - load*: 65c (*not actually load since it wasn't being utilized)
Higher-flow: idle: 62c - load: 65c

CONCLUSION

1- It's bogus. The so-called Low-flow bracket will not give you 5c in most cases.
2- Save yourself 5 bucks. Do-it-yourself bracket will not cost you anything. If you have the right tools, the process is easy and will not involve any risk to your card.
3- Even if you take the bracket off you won't get any difference in temps.

So there you have it.

[zanzabar]

dosnt modding the bracket remove your lifetime warrant. i think that the igh flow official looks better

[SamHughe]

dosnt modding the bracket remove your lifetime warrant. i think that the igh flow official looks better

It does but I don't care because I am xtreme!

[Junos]

If the card breaks, he can just order the high-flow bracket, put it in and RMA.

[Olivon]

LegitReview found just 1° better than the original bracket

[SamHughe]

LegitReview found just 1° better than the original bracket

Which confirms my findings. Even when you take the bracket off completely (I tried this with my 9800gtx+, you won't get anything more than 1c drop.

We really need a new design to cool down this card. What I noticed is the cooling system is almost the same since 8800gtx.

[zanzabar]

what are they supposed to change that will still make it 2 slots, short of going liquid i dont see any way that they can make it better and 2 slots. i would like to see the flow difference on the 2 brackets

[Ket]

Not owning a 470 or 480 I'm unfamiliar with the details of the cooling solution, but making a effective solution is very simple. Copper block for the GPU with heatpipes, many, THIN aluminium fins, NO plastic shroud, half decent fan. Look at that, I've just specified a decent and fairly cheap HSF.

[bamtan2]

Not owning a 470 or 480 I'm unfamiliar with the details of the cooling solution, but making a effective solution is very simple. Copper block for the GPU with heatpipes, many, THIN aluminium fins, NO plastic shroud, half decent fan. Look at that, I've just specified a decent and fairly cheap HSF.

how much space can it take up. how much heat can it introduce into the case. how much can it weigh. how much can it cost. you're right about being unfamiliar with the details!

[H2O]

Ket - the solution you described is very similar to the existing GTX4xx heatsinks. I would rather Nvidia use a vapor cooling system like ATi uses in the HD5970.

[revenant]

I hear people are pulling the shroud and attaching either an 80mm or a 120mm fan to the heatsink fins and that does a better job air cooling.. but takes up at least one more slot... I'm thinking about watercooling again on mine.. damn top card runs 20c warmer than the bottom one.. it's pretty starved for air when comparing the wind coming out of each one.. too bad my case doesn't have the extra slot on the bottom so I can use the last pci-e slot on my UD5 for the other 470

[STEvil]

I have a 120mm fan blowing at the side of my GTX480.. stock fan barely ever spins up.

[revenant]

what these designers need to do is plan for sandwiched cards in SLI config.. so let them breath from the sides and butt end more.. or make the intake on theface recessed a bit so it can get some damn air in when these cards are packed together..