• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

Cooling The Nv 7800GTX

Associate
Joined
22 Jan 2006
Posts
81
Hi all. If I wanted to make my Nvidia XFX "Extreme Ed" 7800GTX in SLI run cooler what could I do, using only conventional methods ie not inluding liquid/water cooling or phase cooling. My card has a stock clock speed of 490mhz and is of the preoverclocked variety. The box on which my card came in says that they have used a really effecient and better cooling solution compared to a regular reference Nvidia 7800GTX card. I am not sure if this is true or not , but for the life of me i can't find any differences in the sink compared to a picture of a reference model, except for colour.

My card runs idle at around 47-55 c in my current case and can go up to about 70-80c easily while playing FEAR. This game always makes a card go real hot, and so is a good game to test out cooling.

I have seen these aftermarket graphic card heatsinks, from companies such as Zalman and Arctic, they have huge fans in the middle, so they look like they are effecient but I think they will make my card in to a dual slot card, which isn't ideal either. Anyway my point is , are my current temps particulary high for a XFX 490mhz 7800GTX or should I really try and get it lower somehow.

Also would those after market heat sinks that I was talking about offer a big improvment or not , compared to what I have already got?
 
Associate
Joined
21 Nov 2005
Posts
69
Location
Shropshire, UK
I had the exact same problem, and i went with arctic coolers..... you can read why they are still on my shelf here
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17515192


In the end i went for water cooling.


heres the idle temps now - they were the same as yours before.
mkvzmx.jpg


I dont have a similiar pic showing the load temps, but the gpu doesn't go above 42 now....even after 4 hours of cod2 :)

If you stick with air, i think the deciding factor is going to be your mobo, and how far apart the sli slots are from each other.
 
Associate
OP
Joined
22 Jan 2006
Posts
81
Peri said:
I had the exact same problem, and i went with arctic coolers..... you can read why they are still on my shelf here
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17515192


In the end i went for water cooling.


heres the idle temps now - they were the same as yours before.
mkvzmx.jpg


I dont have a similiar pic showing the load temps, but the gpu doesn't go above 42 now....even after 4 hours of cod2 :)

If you stick with air, i think the deciding factor is going to be your mobo, and how far apart the sli slots are from each other.

Wow. I really like that setup (the liquid cooling part). I can't believe you are able to get such low temps. I defenitly need to improve mine. As far as my case goes, the one I am using right now isn't ideal and will be getting replace with a Silverstone soon. My mobo has also died on me and so will be getting another one. Either the latest Asus or DFI (A8N32 of Expert). So maybe I could wait until I do all that and see what happens. The case I want has two 120mm fans exhausting at the top and 2 92mm fans intaking air at the back. It doesn't have any vents on the side for another fan to go but it is a big case and does have PCI vets. So as far as CPU cooling I know it's going to be good, but as far as graphic card cooling I don't know, as it doesn't have anything in particular for them. The case is the Temjin TJ07. I really hope that the cool air will get to the bottom before getting sucked out. Opinions?
 
Associate
Joined
21 Nov 2005
Posts
69
Location
Shropshire, UK
My case is a CM Stacker, and with the stock cooling it didn't seem to matter how much cool air i got into the case - gpu's might've dropped 4 or 5c with the sides off.

I believe - i may well be wrong - that all aftermarket aircoolers turn your cards into dual slot hoggers. That was the main reason i went the way i did. With the Abit board (and i've got an msi k8n diamond here thats the same) i just couldn't afford to lose the pci slots. As it is, i still lost my raid card. :(

I'm not familiar with the hardware you've mentioned, so i can't really comment, except to say that personaly, i'd wait till you had all your new kit before thinking about new coolers. The drivers are set to throttle the card back at 115c......so i s'pose that unless the temps go above that, they shouldn't be damaged at all.


Hope you get it sorted mate :)
 
Associate
Joined
6 Jan 2006
Posts
1,032
Location
Notts/Derby
TonyM16 - I have the Leadtek version of your card running at 490 with the dual slot cooler on it. Does yours have the 4 heatpipes? Its the same cooler as what is on the GTX 512.

For info:

My card runs at about 37 degrees C idle (a bit more if the room is a little warmer) and around 50 degrees C on full load. I have an older case but I decided to keep it as I can mount a 120mm Akasa Amber fan at the front bottom of the case which is drawing cool air directly to the video card. Im using an Arctic Cooler 64 on my X2 and a Hiper 580w psu with a 120 and an 80 mm fan inside.

Have you set any fan control up with something like Riva Tuner? I have been messing with Riva Tuner and have had poor results. If I set the Fan Control to AUTO it throttles the fan down to about 25% but does not speed it up in relation to heat.
 
Soldato
Joined
14 Oct 2004
Posts
5,216
Location
location, location
I shouldn't worry about your temps.

My cards idle at 47 & 45 respectively & load at 71 & 68.

That's in an Antec P180 with the HDD in the bottom with the PSU, and 1 x Akasa 120mm silent on intake & two on exhaust duty :)

You're well within spec.

My gripe with the stock coolers is that the hot air from the heatsinks warms the case RIGHT up (I hit near 40 case temp after gaming), which in turn causes the CPU to run warmer. I was tempted by the Arctic Coolers since they exhaust the hot air from the case, but after reading about folks not liking them, I've decided to stick with the standard heatsinks until such time as I take the plunge on water cooling (pun intended!)

Hav
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Apr 2003
Posts
2,674
Location
England
I put 6cm stealth fan on my 7800gtx heatsinks & was only able to clock from 470 to 480, not woth the extra noise :(
Did try water but the resonator started venting steam with old PD 3ghz linked too, not tried with AMD yet though.
 
Soldato
Joined
19 Aug 2005
Posts
4,103
Location
Ealing, London
Havana_UK said:
My gripe with the stock coolers is that the hot air from the heatsinks warms the case RIGHT up (I hit near 40 case temp after gaming), which in turn causes the CPU to run warmer.

Took me ages to work out why my CPU temps seemed higher than others, then it dawned on me it was SLI. My cards get well into the 70's under load but I don't worry about it, they shut down at 115 iirc.
 
Soldato
Joined
2 Jul 2005
Posts
3,549
Location
Newcastle
Peri said:
I had the exact same problem, and i went with arctic coolers..... you can read why they are still on my shelf here
Hello Peri
I have a single 7800GTX and i am looking for one of them arctic coolers for mine.
Are the ones you got the Rev3 ones if so i would be intrested in buying one.
Please send me a e-mail to confirm a price, my e-mail address is in my trust.

Thanks, Sam
 
Associate
Joined
7 Jan 2005
Posts
1,860
Location
Nottingham
Havana_UK said:
I shouldn't worry about your temps.

My cards idle at 47 & 45 respectively & load at 71 & 68.

That's in an Antec P180 with the HDD in the bottom with the PSU, and 1 x Akasa 120mm silent on intake & two on exhaust duty :)

You're well within spec.

My gripe with the stock coolers is that the hot air from the heatsinks warms the case RIGHT up (I hit near 40 case temp after gaming), which in turn causes the CPU to run warmer. I was tempted by the Arctic Coolers since they exhaust the hot air from the case, but after reading about folks not liking them, I've decided to stick with the standard heatsinks until such time as I take the plunge on water cooling (pun intended!)

Hav

In the same boat as you hav i got gtx sli hit 45-50 idle and not for off 80oC for both cards at load and my cpu 45 idle and nearly 60oC at load

Just odreded most of my new watercooling setup cost me nearly £350. But should be really good as i have orderd decent bits
 
Back
Top Bottom