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Ok, I have two EVGA 7800GTX KOs in my system, with the box-heatsink (pictured here), and they run between 70 to 80 c underload (Oblivion and COD2, my two current favorites, pushing 80 degrees). Now, they're not artifacting or showing any sign of data corruption, but I'm getting tired of having a space heater under my desk, especially when my CPU and Northbridge barely get above 35 c under load.

I've had this system in three different cases (a Lian-Li v1200, which was the hotest of the bunch and RMA'ed, a CM Stacker 810, with an ungodly amount of fans but a pain in the ass to work in, and currently a Silverstone TJ07, with a 120mm intake installed in the 5 1/4 drive bays), and the cards have always run at these temperatures, give or take a couple degrees.

Now, is it worth replacing the heatsinks, which seem to be excellent at storing heat but not dumping it (they are burning hot to the touch, unlike my CPU heatsink which is slightly cool to the touch)? Or should I just not worry with (I'm planning on gutting my system when Vista comes out, anyway)? If I do go the replacement route, should I go with Zalman VF900s, Artic Cooling NV5r3, or something else?

If your heatsinks are hot to the touch, then they're not getting much airflow. Take the side-panel off and see if theres a large difference. This would also be a good time to check for heat-pockets (particularly around your hard drives!). Having a bazillion fans won't do you any good if you've got shit for airflow. Start moving cables out of the way of your fans if possible.

Here's the guts of the system:




Note: These photes don't show the 120mm mounted in the drive bays infront of the video cards. I added that last night.

I can't really see how to make the cables any neater, without modding the case (something I don't want to do). As for heat pockets, the video card heat sinks exhaust toward the front (which is fucking stupid), so its the only thing I can of causing a heat pocket.

From the bottom picture, it's as if you have 4 fans vying over sucking the air out of the same tiny quarter of the case. I'm pretty sure thats not optimal.

Ok, as strange as it sounds, it looks like you've got TOO many fans. You've got more output than you have input, so you're basically creating a small vacuum. You need atleast a couple of those bringing air IN from somewhere lower in the case, though from looking at your layout the best spot would be in the side-panel itself.

I do have a couple of spare 120s. I guess I could drill out the side panel over the PCI slots and mount them there. Would you suggest I place them vertically or horizonitally?

Mount the fan so it blows air to the intake of the GPU fans.

Arrow wrote:Ok, I have two EVGA 7800GTX KOs in my system, with the box-heatsink (pictured here), and they run between 70 to 80 c underload (Oblivion and COD2, my two current favorites, pushing 80 degrees). Now, they're not artifacting or showing any sign of data corruption, but I'm getting tired of having a space heater under my desk, especially when my CPU and Northbridge barely get above 35 c under load.

I've had this system in three different cases (a Lian-Li v1200, which was the hotest of the bunch and RMA'ed, a CM Stacker 810, with an ungodly amount of fans but a pain in the ass to work in, and currently a Silverstone TJ07, with a 120mm intake installed in the 5 1/4 drive bays), and the cards have always run at these temperatures, give or take a couple degrees.

Now, is it worth replacing the heatsinks, which seem to be excellent at storing heat but not dumping it (they are burning hot to the touch, unlike my CPU heatsink which is slightly cool to the touch)? Or should I just not worry with (I'm planning on gutting my system when Vista comes out, anyway)? If I do go the replacement route, should I go with Zalman VF900s, Artic Cooling NV5r3, or something else?

First, your system will produce the same amount of heat regardless of what heatsink you're using.* Different heatsinks merely are more or less efficient at moving that heat away from the processor.

Second, video cards tend to run hotter, and have higher temperature tolerances than CPUs (which are themselves a bit more tolerant than some of their predecessors) so unless you just have to be able to rub your penis all over your vid card, I think you'll be fine.

* Technically, if the processor were to get so hot that it had to throttle itself down, your computer would probably start to generate less heat.

Uraniun235 wrote:First, your system will produce the same amount of heat regardless of what heatsink you're using.* Different heatsinks merely are more or less efficient at moving that heat away from the processor.

Second, video cards tend to run hotter, and have higher temperature tolerances than CPUs (which are themselves a bit more tolerant than some of their predecessors) so unless you just have to be able to rub your penis all over your vid card, I think you'll be fine.

* Technically, if the processor were to get so hot that it had to throttle itself down, your computer would probably start to generate less heat.

I already know that. What I wanted was ideas to get rid of the heat.

Vertigo' and Beowulf's ideas have helped a lot. I got some help, and got two holes cut in the side panel for the 120s, and got it all mounted, and the GPUs now are 5 c cooler at idle, and 10 to 15 c cooler under load (so far only tested with COD2 multiplayer). That's a hell of an improvement (and my first case mod!). Now I just need to find some nice filters/grills.

Arrow wrote:Here's the guts of the system:




Note: These photes don't show the 120mm mounted in the drive bays infront of the video cards. I added that last night.

I can't really see how to make the cables any neater, without modding the case (something I don't want to do). As for heat pockets, the video card heat sinks exhaust toward the front (which is fucking stupid), so its the only thing I can of causing a heat pocket.

FUCK dude! That's far too many fans.The airflow paths in your case are terrible (and you must be nearly deaf =). The most important thing in cooling a case is how well the air flows through the case. Your airflow is going in 4 different directions (which slow things down, think of what a rock does to waterflow in a river), your airflow is being dirverted away from the hottest components, and the amount of intake is insufficient to warrant the amount of exhaust you have.

It looks like you have something similar to an Antec P-180, which is a fairly decent case for cooling (though the case you have appears to lack the nice big intake vents in the front that the P-180 has). I have the P-180, and here's what I did to get maximum cooling:

* Use the lower bay (assuming you have one) at the bottom like the P-180 for HD drives. The PS is more than capable of sufficiently cooling your drives (the bottom is a really nice wind tunnel). This has the added affect of keeping the air coming into the top of the case cooler as it doesn't pass over the HDDs (which usually run about 50-60C).

* Don't put six gazillion fans in the machine, That many fans is actually harmful. This is especially true for the 120 fan between the 5 1/4 bays and the CPU, It's sucking all the cool air right out of the case before it has a chance to pass over the CPU (especially since the massive heatsink you have the on the CPU is an effective windshield, heh). More importantly, the air flow in your case is pretty much all getting diverted away from the video cards with the amount of fans that are at the top of the case. Unless you are overclocking, you really only need 1 120mm Fan to exhaust the heat from your CPU (or two if you run them at 7V like I do).

* Buy Arctic Cooling NV Silencers over the Zalman solution for your cards (about $30 each). These are much better coolers than the stock nVidia coolers (much bigger heat sinks, much bigger (and quieter) fans), They also have the added advantage of directly exhausting the heat from the cards. If you do this, and only use 1-2 fans near the CPU, air flow will be redirected to the video cards. The one problem might be that you have a SLI config, and I don't know how well the Silencer will work for the upper card (The silencers are about 2.5 times the height of the stock coolers).

Although your temps aren't really all that bad, the above would probably pull your load temps down 10-15C. Though remember, if the problem is really that you don't like how much heat the machine is putting out (i.e. heating your room), this will do nothing. It will only cool the operating temp of your components. If you want to reduce the amount of heat your machine is putting into the air, you'll have to use a water cooling setup.

Miles Teg

A buddy of mine was having all kinds of heat problems with his Intel 'Press-hot' processor until he ditched his side panel and obtained one that was from an Intel 'Thermally Advantaged Chassis' rated case (that means a duct directly over the CPU HS/Fan and air holes over the slot for the graphics card.

He wound up ordering a replacement panel from Antec that had the airholes over the graphics card slot and the air horn over the CPU, and it solved his temperature problems.

Me, I have an A64 system and have no such heat issues.

Hmm, I looked up that case, and it seems rather poorly designed for cooling VGA cards (an in general a cooling design that's -- odd). I didn't realize that the two 92s in the back were intake, and that the two 120's were exhaust for the CPU and memory (and that the open grill next to the slots is a passive intake that's supposed to provide cool air to the VGA cards, though I don't think it could possibly do a good job the way it's positioned). This is a really bad system, because if you are using intake fans in the front like you are, there are two streams of air in the case that are flowing in opposite directions (one back to front, one front to back), so they cancel each other out to a large degree. Since this it true, you are probably better off not getting the NV Silencers, since they will only increase problem.

Miles Teg

Arrow wrote:

Uraniun235 wrote:First, your system will produce the same amount of heat regardless of what heatsink you're using.* Different heatsinks merely are more or less efficient at moving that heat away from the processor.

Second, video cards tend to run hotter, and have higher temperature tolerances than CPUs (which are themselves a bit more tolerant than some of their predecessors) so unless you just have to be able to rub your penis all over your vid card, I think you'll be fine.

* Technically, if the processor were to get so hot that it had to throttle itself down, your computer would probably start to generate less heat.

I already know that. What I wanted was ideas to get rid of the heat.

Vertigo' and Beowulf's ideas have helped a lot. I got some help, and got two holes cut in the side panel for the 120s, and got it all mounted, and the GPUs now are 5 c cooler at idle, and 10 to 15 c cooler under load (so far only tested with COD2 multiplayer). That's a hell of an improvement (and my first case mod!). Now I just need to find some nice filters/grills.

You said you were tired of having a space heater under your desk, and I replied that the computer will be just as much of a space heater with or without the worlds most elite cooling solution.

You also asked if it was worth worrying about. I said no.

If you just wanted "tell me how to make my video card cooler" than you should have just said so rather than dance around the subject.

Miles Teg wrote: If you want to reduce the amount of heat your machine is putting into the air, you'll have to use a water cooling setup.

That doesn't make any sense. The heat is being transferred from the components to the water. Where does the heat go from there? Into subspace?

The components will produce the same amount of heat no matter what cooling solution is used. That heat has to go somewhere. Unless you're piping the water out of the room, that heat will eventually be transferred to the surrounding environment.

Uraniun235 wrote:You said you were tired of having a space heater under your desk, and I replied that the computer will be just as much of a space heater with or without the worlds most elite cooling solution.

You also asked if it was worth worrying about. I said no.

If you just wanted "tell me how to make my video card cooler" than you should have just said so rather than dance around the subject.

And if you dissipate the heat faster, by improving airflow (which is exactly what mounting 120s in the side panel did, BTW), you have less heat build up, which in turn means I don't feel like I have a space heater under my desk.

If that means replacing the VGA sinks, so be it. If that means modding the side panel, that's good too.

Anyway, here's the mod:


Don't laugh at the blue fans, out of what I have available, they move the most air (58 cfm). And I need to clean the dirt off the side panel.

The desk also isn't helping matters, but I don't have any other place to the put the case. Its got 6" clearance on the side, and about that much on back.

Another thing I was thinking might improve airflow is changing the fan orientation on the CPU HS. Right now, its blowing air toward the side panel, not the board, so its probably fighting the airflow of the other fans. Flipping to blow on the CPU should work better with the exhaust fans.

As for the case being loud, its not. The fans are all low RPM (all under 2000 RPM).

Maybe you should try moving the fans so that air is drawn in one side, blown over the cards, then sucked out the other side? Airflow *through* the case is more important than airflow *inside* the case, if you know what I mean.

You mean have the air do a U turn over the cards, basically?

It doesn't have to turn, it just has to flow - for instance, my setup draws air in the front (through drivebay fans) and sucks out the back with some 3"s. I get constant fresh air flowing in the front, over the drives, past the GPU and the CPU then forced out the back. That's better than having the same air cycling around inside, or air drawn through the holes in the bottom.

If you're interested, here's the Intel chassis design guide that has plenty of info on cooling.

That's interesting. I could take a page out of the guide and put in a vent hole above the CPU, and the panaflo suck in air.

Placement is critical.
My buddy wound up ordering a replacement door (his case is an Antec) with the air guide and video card vent holes already in place because he butchered the old one trying to do it himself and he got the measurements wrong.

It made a huge difference once it was in place though, as his CPU and case temps went from constantly triggering heat alarms to running well within spec.

Before we figured out the air horn and vent holes were critical, we tried all kinds of crazy 120mm fan combos and a huge ass copper heatsink and nothing worked.

Miles Teg wrote: If you want to reduce the amount of heat your machine is putting into the air, you'll have to use a water cooling setup.

That doesn't make any sense. The heat is being transferred from the components to the water. Where does the heat go from there? Into subspace?[/quote]

Down the drain would be the most likely candidate. Not all water blocks recycle their water. Or, at the very least, he can put the radiator someplace where there is a more efficient way to remove the heat from the room (like next to the window). Just trying thinking a *little* bit out of the box, OK?

Miles Teg