ATI X1950XTX, VGA Cooler?

[bhaltair]

I know the X1950XTX is a new card with a new cooler that is supposed to be much better than the X1900 series but I couldn't seem to find anything that mentions if upgrading to a different VGA Cooler is worth it like the Zalman VF900 or something better? I am looking for something too cool the chip well but also keep it relativley silent as I am using a P180. Price is not an issue but I want to keep this air cooled hence posting in this forum Thanks for the help!

[Sparky]

I would use the new stock cooler first and see how it is noise and temp-wise. It looks to be a very well-designed cooler and the DHES (direct heat exhaust system) is preferable to the "air recycler" style of the vf900 or the accelero.

[Vapor]

You're not gonna beat the stock one....definitely the best cooler out there. And you can use software to fine tune RPMs (and therefore noise) to your liking.

[Firelord-OCHW]

When I had an X850XT I used a AC ATi Silencer and a VF700 and always got better results with the VF700 than the AC. Have you seen the new Thermalright HR03?

[GrimReaper]

oh yeah take a look at the HR03

http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/thhr.html

[Kunaak]

the stock cooler is not the best one out there.
after 50% fan speed, the fan is still ridiculously loud, and idle temps below 50% are still in the mid 60C's....

so theres definatly room for improvement.

you cannot hook a Accelero to this card, cause this card uses a 4 pin connection that is definatly different then the 3 pin connection the X1900 cards use.

[berk]

Whats the best watercooling VGA block for this card?

[[XC] Lead Head]

Whats the best watercooling VGA block for this card?

nice thread hijack!

[911us]

oh yeah take a look at the HR03

http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/thhr.html

cool...but how about the performance,better than VF900 ???

[Kunaak]

cool...but how about the performance,better than VF900 ???

when it comes to the X1900 cards... ANYTHING is better then the VF900's.

those are near complete junk on the X1900 cards.
check the posts history around here, they turned out to be worse then stock, and in some cases, drastically bad for X1900's...

[bhoward]

I replaced the stock cooler on the X1950XTX with the VF900 ... And I am so happy ....

Stock coller was pretty quite but did start to whine at around 80c. I did see 85c when oc'ed a little.
Idle temps ~ 46c
Stock load ~ 80c
OC Load (675) ~ 85c

I had to remove both the heatsink and the ram chip heatsink. Now with the same OC as above, My temps are
Idle ~ 42c
Stock Load ~ 56c
Oc Load (675) ~ 61c

[Ender17]

when it comes to the X1900 cards... ANYTHING is better then the VF900's.

those are near complete junk on the X1900 cards.
check the posts history around here, they turned out to be worse then stock, and in some cases, drastically bad for X1900's...

I replaced the stock cooler on the X1950XTX with the VF900 ... And I am so happy ....

Stock coller was pretty quite but did start to whine at around 80c. I did see 85c when oc'ed a little.
Idle temps ~ 46c
Stock load ~ 80c
OC Load (675) ~ 85c

I had to remove both the heatsink and the ram chip heatsink. Now with the same OC as above, My temps are
Idle ~ 42c
Stock Load ~ 56c
Oc Load (675) ~ 61c

which is it?

I need a quiet cooler for my X1900XT, don't care about overclocking it

[Viss]

At 50% stock heatsink is rather quiet if you are used to X18/1900 hsf. I like it a lot. Ran some quick tests. Ive had a X2 on X1800XT which did worse then stock especially with more volt for core. Im pretty sure a VF900 wil not pull this of on a X1950 Ambient 20 deg & open case. Stock volts/3D clocks.

50%


75%


Full

[bhoward]

You can't be serious ... Wanting to compare temps is kinda useless.

Let's see ...Your case is ???, front/rear fans, Side is off, amb ~ 20c

Mine .... Sivlerstone LC-17, top on, amb ~ 22c, 2 x 80 front, 20 x 80 read, real quite fans.

Ran for 10 minutes, temp was 66c @100%, which you cannot hear

ATI at 100% sounds like a jet taking off.

IN MY CASE, the VF900 knock 10 to 15C+ off my load temps without jets taking off.

[fhpchris]

The stock cooler is the one you want on an x1950XTX, VF900 is crap compared to it.

IF you want quiet and do not care about performance, get an Accelero X2.

[Nanometer]

You can't be serious ... Wanting to compare temps is kinda useless.

Let's see ...Your case is ???, front/rear fans, Side is off, amb ~ 20c

Mine .... Sivlerstone LC-17, top on, amb ~ 22c, 2 x 80 front, 20 x 80 read, real quite fans.

Ran for 10 minutes, temp was 66c @100%, which you cannot hear

ATI at 100% sounds like a jet taking off.

IN MY CASE, the VF900 knock 10 to 15C+ off my load temps without jets taking off.

Now lets see:

1. You do not have a 1950XTX
2. The card you have is not in any way comparable
3. The stock cooler on the 1950XTX is better than the VF-900 reguardless of what others say

[bhoward]

Sorry ... new build and I did not change my sig ...

Points 1 & 2 are useless now

Point 3 - The stock cooler may be great at full speed but at 50+DB's, hardly very usefully (unless you are deaf)

I, personally, found the fan stock very whiney as soon as I hit the 3rd level temp were the fan speed increase to 25% (i think).

[flesheatinvirus]

I just bought the Thermalright HR03 for my 1900XTX,should be here on friday so this weekend I will let you know just how well it works.

[tdenton1138]

I'm looking forward to your review of that HR03. Silent PC Review did a nice roundup of some vga coolers and I'm very interested in changing out the loud NVsilencer variety of hsf that came stock with my Sapphire x1900xt 512mb. SPCR rated the VF900-cu the best which I was about to buy, be decided it best to check around here as well. I'm looking for quiet and efficient.

[flesheatinvirus]

I just got my HR03 installed on my X1900XTX and so far it looks like an excellent replacement compared to other avalible sinks out there. The quality of this sink is fantastic as usual coming from Thermalright and its ability to be mounted in either a sandwich config or under the card is certainly a plus for modders. I installed it in the normal sandwiched position on my X1900XTX and used a Thermaltake A2028 90mm vari speed fan with reobus control setup to pull air through the sink.RPM range is 1300-4500 and at 4500 produces 92.61CFM of air yet on low is almost silent. I ran a couple of quick benches to see just how good this sink is and its awesome. With my card at stock settings with fan at its lowest speed the GPU never exceeded 30C and even under load after running 3DM06 a couple times with the card slightly clocked and fan at half speed it still never went beyond 35C with a 29C enviroment inside the case using a Opty 170 water cooled and running at 2975mhz. This heatsink is outstanding at cooling my X1900XTX and is way better then I even thought it would be.The temp outside today is around 65-70 but should drop down to the mid or low 40s tonight for perhaps some good window air tests but I am extremely pleased with its performance so far. More to come after some torture testing tonight.

[biohead]

I just got my HR03 installed on my X1900XTX and so far it looks like an excellent replacement compared to other avalible sinks out there. The quality of this sink is fantastic as usual coming from Thermalright and its ability to be mounted in either a sandwich config or under the card is certainly a plus for modders. I installed it in the normal sandwiched position on my X1900XTX and used a Thermaltake A2028 90mm vari speed fan with reobus control setup to pull air through the sink.RPM range is 1300-4500 and at 4500 produces 92.61CFM of air yet on low is almost silent. I ran a couple of quick benches to see just how good this sink is and its awesome. With my card at stock settings with fan at its lowest speed the GPU never exceeded 30C and even under load after running 3DM06 a couple times with the card slightly clocked and fan at half speed it still never went beyond 35C with a 29C enviroment inside the case using a Opty 170 water cooled and running at 2975mhz. This heatsink is outstanding at cooling my X1900XTX and is way better then I even thought it would be.The temp outside today is around 65-70 but should drop down to the mid or low 40s tonight for perhaps some good window air tests but I am extremely pleased with its performance so far. More to come after some torture testing tonight.

You're doing it wrong. Running 3Dmark a few times to check the temperature afterwards isn't accurate. When a GPU goes from load to idle, the temperature will drop like a brick immediately. Plus 3dmark won't fully heat up the GPU as it pauses between each test, which makes the GPU cool down. The temps you say at 'stock' are actually 2D clocks 500/600 with a vGPU of 1.15v. At those settings, my vf900 makes it idle at the same temperature.
I suggest you use atitool to set clocks of 650/775 with a vGPU of 1.4, then run the artifact scanner for 10 minutes and check the temperature. My guess is that it'll probably be hitting high 50s, which nonetheless is still impressive. Another method is looping 3dmark06's SM3.0 test, which apparently heats up the GPU the most, and letting atitool/att show the GPU temperature (OSD).

[flesheatinvirus]

Ok I ran some actual temp tests with the HR03. My room is exactly 60 degrees F and I set the fan on half speed on the sink and used ATI Tool Tray to set the core Voltage to 1.425 and with the core at 700 and mem at 800 I let ATI Tool Tray run a scan for artifacts for 15 minutes and the core never exceeded 48C, I then preceeded to increase the core voltage to 1.5 and cranked up the core and mem to 729/829 leaving the fan speed the same and ran it for another 11 minutes and it stayed between 52-53C. I would say this is an excellent heatsink without a doubt.

[NickS]

when it comes to the X1900 cards... ANYTHING is better then the VF900's.

those are near complete junk on the X1900 cards.
check the posts history around here, they turned out to be worse then stock, and in some cases, drastically bad for X1900's...

Same is true for 1800's too. Just stay with stock cooler or buy Thermalright's new contraption.

[biohead]

Ok I ran some actual temp tests with the HR03. My room is exactly 60 degrees F and I set the fan on half speed on the sink and used ATI Tool Tray to set the core Voltage to 1.425 and with the core at 700 and mem at 800 I let ATI Tool Tray run a scan for artifacts for 15 minutes and the core never exceeded 48C, I then preceeded to increase the core voltage to 1.5 and cranked up the core and mem to 729/829 leaving the fan speed the same and ran it for another 11 minutes and it stayed between 52-53C. I would say this is an excellent heatsink without a doubt.

those are excellent results, but i'm not really familiar with the ATT artifact scanner. Could you run the atitool artifact scanner, just to see if it makes a difference in temperature?

I just tested it and ATT will make my GPU eventually top at high 60s, while atitool makes it skyrocket to mid 70s.

I believe the HR-03 is an excellent cooler but I'm just curious what atitool does with the temperature. Could you run it please?

[flesheatinvirus]

Here you go Biohead.Ok I ran the same test with ATI Tool only now the room was 58 F with voltage set at 1.42 and fan at half speed, core and mem are at 701/801 I let it run for 14 minutes and my core temp stayed around 46C while doing a arti scan.