Sapphire X1950Pro Paranoia

[mrsemi]

I bought a chip a while back to update my poor old 754 mobo as well as an x800gto.

With my new gear, an arctic cooler pro & vf900 I was armed to take my first shot at overclocking. Problem was my very first install on the zalman to the x800gto agp seemed to fry my card.

Upon loading I got artifacts and all I did was put the vf900 on. So I order another one & slap the vf900 on without thinking to test it without the aftermarket fan first.

This card is doa as well, so I'm wondering if I killed these or if they were just bound for video card heaven.

On to my paranoia. I'm still a major noob with installs. I got arctic silver 5 from newegg and was wondering if that's the wrong type for the video card. I thought maybe since it was 99.9% silver compound it was causing some unwanted connections. Can that happen?

Now my x1950Pro arrives today. This vf900 zalman (the one that possibly slayed my x800gto's) will fit on the x1950Pro after reading the reviews on the Sapphire

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16814102061

I realize maybe I should have done some research before buying. I've got only a 450 w psu and no idea what the 12 v rail is so I've gotta dig into that.

So pretty much the question here is will arctic silver 5 work for the chip if I brave the upgrade. If yes, can any of you think how a zalman vf900 may have slain my two x800gto agp's?

I've not gamed in 6 days now waiting for parts I await your wisdom gods of the VPU boards.

 

[tkpenalty]

Um just install it? :S...

It was already dead in the first place so yeah just RMA.

 

[Ketxxx]

AS5 should only be used on the core, make sure its a small amount so it doesnt leak out the edges. AS5 can kill components in unlucky curcumstances, but usually if it gets somewhere it shouldnt simply cleaning the hardware in question well is enough. Personally I would use AS Ceramique, performs almost identical to AS5 and you wont run the risk of shorting or killing anything

 

[WarEagleAU]

Ceramique is what I recommend for the GPU cards and NB and SB chipsets. I mainly use AS5 for the cpu and that is all. Though I did happen to use it while putting on the Arctic Cooler Silencers Rev2??? (for the x800 pcie16x series) on the core. The memory chips had their own thermal adhesive pads.

Also, I dont think the vf900 fryed your x800 agp card. The vf900 is a marvel at keeping the gpu cool. It might have just been the end of its life or something happened when putting it in the new motherboard.

Just out of curiosity, who makes your psu?

 

[joinmeindeath417]

+12V Rail

This voltage rail supplies power to the most demanding part including the CPU, drives, cooling fans and graphics cards. All of these items draw a lot of current so if you get a crappy regulator (the way to tell that is the brand ) it could kill the power supply quicker because its not regulating right and eventually shorts out components on the power supply

 

[Tommithy]

I think the issue you may have run into is the same I ran into with my X850. The VF900 is held on with only 2 screws and when tightening it down on the gpu it is really REALLY easy to bend the card because of the force of the screws. Even with a backplate this happens. I killed my X850 and a 9800pro before I realized what was going on.

The 1950 has a 4 screw hold down which is much nicer and much harder to flex/bend the card.

 

[tkpenalty]

Ceramique is what I recommend for the GPU cards and NB and SB chipsets. I mainly use AS5 for the cpu and that is all. Though I did happen to use it while putting on the Arctic Cooler Silencers Rev2??? (for the x800 pcie16x series) on the core. The memory chips had their own thermal adhesive pads.

Also, I dont think the vf900 fryed your x800 agp card. The vf900 is a marvel at keeping the gpu cool. It might have just been the end of its life or something happened when putting it in the new motherboard.

Just out of curiosity, who makes your psu?

AS5 on thermalright on bare die = death.

 

[lpfreak]

i'm seriously doubting that the vf900 actually killed your card, more likely you installed it incorrectly?

 

[mrsemi]

AS5 on thermalright on bare die = death.

Explain please. what's a bare die?

Thanks for the responses guys, I got this stuff put together and I'm flat out amazed at how insane it is. I don't know if it's possible to run better.

I'll check out some ceramique and put the zalman on but core 2 duo from what I was on rocks some major a**.

 

[DuggyUK]

Explain please. what's a bare die?

The die is the chip itself. so he means on the to of the chip.

 

[Ketxxx]

Bare die = core die, aka a VGPU.

 

[gromet]

I bought a chip a while back to update my poor old 754 mobo as well as an x800gto.

With my new gear, an arctic cooler pro & vf900 I was armed to take my first shot at overclocking. Problem was my very first install on the zalman to the x800gto agp seemed to fry my card.

Upon loading I got artifacts and all I did was put the vf900 on. So I order another one & slap the vf900 on without thinking to test it without the aftermarket fan first.

This card is doa as well, so I'm wondering if I killed these or if they were just bound for video card heaven.

On to my paranoia. I'm still a major noob with installs. I got arctic silver 5 from newegg and was wondering if that's the wrong type for the video card. I thought maybe since it was 99.9% silver compound it was causing some unwanted connections. Can that happen?

Now my x1950Pro arrives today. This vf900 zalman (the one that possibly slayed my x800gto's) will fit on the x1950Pro after reading the reviews on the Sapphire

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16814102061

I realize maybe I should have done some research before buying. I've got only a 450 w psu and no idea what the 12 v rail is so I've gotta dig into that.

So pretty much the question here is will arctic silver 5 work for the chip if I brave the upgrade. If yes, can any of you think how a zalman vf900 may have slain my two x800gto agp's?

I've not gamed in 6 days now waiting for parts I await your wisdom gods of the VPU boards.

Its up to you which you wnat to use...But the factory sapphaire cooler is very inadequate imo. Here is a comparsion of 2 x1950's.

The one on top is the sapphaire factory cooler backing, the other is the ATI factory cooler backing. You will notice a size difference (that is because 1 is a VRM cooler (ATI) the other is not (sapphaire)...but what I'm pointing out is the base material, the ATI is cooper base, while the sapphaire is aluminum w/ no cooper on the GPU! With factory cooler temps run 56 in idle, just playing obvilion temps soared to 84 on factory cooling. I already had the Zalman ZV9's (one was already installed on my ATI board). In idle between the two boards (sapphaire stock, ati zv9 cooled it was 56 vs 41). With the ZV9s both idle @ 41 ATI 42 Sapphaire.

I would go w/ the zalman over factory anyday. It took two cards before I got a working sapphaire (glad I got the non vrm version as well). If you go w/ the zalman, I would get some better ram heat sinks (I went w/ the all cooper thermaltakes and installed w/ as silver epoxy after removing the cheap factory thermal tape). Just make sure you dont have a reference cooler. In the picture, if you notice the difference in the sizes of the coolers its because the ati board uses VRM's which need some type of cooling, for my ati board I ended up cutting the copper heat sinks to fit in place. If your fan is on the left side blowing your ok, if your fan is on the right side (as you look at the board) and has the longer cooler, you will need to add some type of heat sinks to the vrms, check the x1950 club for what they look like..lots of great info there. My first sapphaire I received was a VRM model, the 2nd was not.

Sapphaire board w/ ram heat sinks!

Its new home

 

[bigboi86]

Bare die = core die, aka a VGPU.

VGPU is an abbreviation for GPU voltage.

 

[DuggyUK]

Its up to you which you wnat to use...But the factory sapphaire cooler is very inadequate imo. Here is a comparsion of 2 x1950's.

FYI there appears to be NO VRM cooling on any of those coolers.

 

[tkpenalty]

FYI there appears to be NO VRM cooling on any of those coolers.

*Sighs* The NEWER PCB does not need any VRM unit cooling.

 

[mrsemi]

Its up to you which you wnat to use...But the factory sapphaire cooler is very inadequate imo. Here is a comparsion of 2 x1950's.


The one on top is the sapphaire factory cooler backing, the other is the ATI factory cooler backing. You will notice a size difference (that is because 1 is a VRM cooler (ATI) the other is not (sapphaire)...but what I'm pointing out is the base material, the ATI is cooper base, while the sapphaire is aluminum w/ no cooper on the GPU! With factory cooler temps run 56 in idle, just playing obvilion temps soared to 84 on factory cooling. I already had the Zalman ZV9's (one was already installed on my ATI board). In idle between the two boards (sapphaire stock, ati zv9 cooled it was 56 vs 41). With the ZV9s both idle @ 41 ATI 42 Sapphaire.

I would go w/ the zalman over factory anyday. It took two cards before I got a working sapphaire (glad I got the non vrm version as well). If you go w/ the zalman, I would get some better ram heat sinks (I went w/ the all cooper thermaltakes and installed w/ as silver epoxy after removing the cheap factory thermal tape). Just make sure you dont have a reference cooler. In the picture, if you notice the difference in the sizes of the coolers its because the ati board uses VRM's which need some type of cooling, for my ati board I ended up cutting the copper heat sinks to fit in place. If your fan is on the left side blowing your ok, if your fan is on the right side (as you look at the board) and has the longer cooler, you will need to add some type of heat sinks to the vrms, check the x1950 club for what they look like..lots of great info there. My first sapphaire I received was a VRM model, the 2nd was not.


Sapphaire board w/ ram heat sinks!

Its new home

Thanks for the response. I don't know if my new one has those vrm's I'm enjoying the machine too much at the moment. I don't wanna pull the stock off till I'm certain I don't have to cool those vrm's if they exist.

Couple more questions for you vets. My system rates a 5.7 on vista windows experience monitor after I changed the fsb up to 1333 clocking the card at 3 gig. 3d mark score is 4783.

1 - Return to Proxycon 11.975 FPS
2 - Firefly Forest 15.454 FPS
CPU Tests
CPU1 - Red Valley 0.763 FPS
CPU2 - Red Valley 1.234 FPS
HDR Tests
1 - Canyon Flight (SM 3.0) 18.91 FPS
2 - Deep Freeze (SM 3.0) 21.962 FPS

I don't think it's a bad score but I would like to see it go up. Is gambling with a modded bios & better cooling the only way to raise it? This forum seems to be a lot about tweaks but I haven't found much regarding system tweaks. Any suggestions? I just wanna fool around with it a little before I go messing up another card, the recent purchase dented the wallet pretty good.