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High performance aftermarket air cooler for a Radeon HD 5870?

M

Monkey_Business

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I am building a new gaming rig with a Radeon HD 5870 graphics card. The last 4 graphics cards I've owned have had nothing but heat problems. I do NOT plan on overclocking my HD 5870 in any way. But certainly it will run at a lower temperature both idle and load, using an aftermarket air cooler.

Do they make any high-performance air coolers for the HD 5870 or even the 5970 yet? Does the heat sink fit onto both the GPU core AND memory chips? Most computer coolers are not terribly expensive, unless it's water cooling. A very good air cooler is usually <$100.
 
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I just got a Vapor-x 5870 and it has a pretty hefty cooler on it already, maybe look into something like that? it looks like it cools everything including the memory. I havent installed it yet, but it looks significant.
 
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Monkey_Business

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I just got a Vapor-x 5870 and it has a pretty hefty cooler on it already, maybe look into something like that? it looks like it cools everything including the memory. I havent installed it yet, but it looks significant.

The stock coolers on any GPU are usually inadequate. It's nice to know that a version of a graphics card is sold with a hefty cooler already attached to it from the factory. What exactly does vapor-x mean?
 

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The stock coolers on any GPU are usually inadequate. It's nice to know that a version of a graphics card is sold with a hefty cooler already attached to it from the factory. What exactly does vapor-x mean?

read
 
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That vapor-x cooler on the sapphire HD 5870 is more than enough to keep it cool under load at it's stock speeds?
Even the reference cooler on the 5870 is good for some OCing. ;)


The cooling on the HD5k series have seriously improved, and the new GPUs also put out less heat themselves.
 
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I just got a Vapor-x 5870 and it has a pretty hefty cooler on it already, maybe look into something like that? it looks like it cools everything including the memory. I havent installed it yet, but it looks significant.

Agreed, i love mine, idles at 26c, load on BC2 never above 55c
 

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the stock cooler is definitely adequate, at most you should only have to boost the fan profile to keep it cool using MSI Afterburner, like Boneface my card loads in the mid 50's.

you will get better temps with a different cooler, and definitely less noise however.
 
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The Vapor-X solution is the best / most cost effective air cooling solution available at the moment.

If I had to go one better I would grab a Scythe Setsugen and a Thermalright Type 4 mofset heatsink ;)

Edit:

Cheapest solution: flash your non vapor-x 5870 with the vapor-x rev 2 12.019 bios and get much better cooling for a little more noise :)
 

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How does this thing do on the vrms?
 

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+ on the Vapor X. I just got mine and have very similar temps. Idles 26, never gets much above 55.

plus, it's cool lookin:
 
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The stock coolers on any GPU are usually inadequate. It's nice to know that a version of a graphics card is sold with a hefty cooler already attached to it from the factory. What exactly does vapor-x mean?

I agree with you that ATi's previous cards had pretty bad cooling, the reference 5 series coolers are just the opposite. You can't go wrong with the Toxic though.
 
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If you go after Market you'll have to buy a separate VRM cooler or get individual mosfet heatsinks.

It seems only thermal-right have mosfet coolers for the 5 series as-well and they cost LOTS.

At the moment the Vapor-x by sapphire is your best bet as everyone else recommended.

how ever if you DO go after market I can't recommend the thermalright T-rad 2 enough.

if you have a side panel fan you could easily run a 5870 passive with it ( no really)




@ erocker, technically the coolers are still poor compared to aftermarket its just the 5 series are so cool running the stock coolers seem great.

If you slaped after market on you'll be overclocking 5series cards like a mad person.

I've seen a 5770 @ 1200mhz under water, so I'm certain 1ghz would be possible with a trad maybe more :p
 
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By the way, has someone ever tried to change the stock cooler's thermal paste in the HD5000s?

In previous graphics cards from ATI, changing the thermal paste to AS5 would decrease the GPU temperature almost 10Âş C.
 

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lol my bad guys, wrong thread.

keep going
 
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@ erocker, technically the coolers are still poor compared to aftermarket its just the 5 series are so cool running the stock coolers seem great.

If you slaped after market on you'll be overclocking 5series cards like a mad person.

I've seen a 5770 @ 1200mhz under water, so I'm certain 1ghz would be possible with a trad maybe more :p

Huh? The coolers are not poor at all! They work silently at stock fan speeds and cool efficiently. When you want to bomb some overclocking runs you can crank the fan up. They are far better than any reference cooler I've used from ATi, Nvidia, and the rest. I also use two 5850's so it's not like I have a fluke cooler or anything.
 
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Put the cooler on a 4870 ! :D

Its like the egg coolers on the 5770s everyone thought they were good, I've had one of them on a 4870 and I had idles of 65 c, and I live in nice cool England!


its just the GPU itself is nice and cool running, it does not make the heatsinks/fans etc technically "good" at all.
 
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Monkey_Business

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I took this shot of CPUID HW Manager seconds after exiting Crysis. using the snippet tool. Look at the temperature of my HD 4850 (it has NOT been overclocked) I hope the HD 5870 vapor-x does not have that same problem.

 
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I took this shot of CPUID HW Manager seconds after exiting Crysis. using the snippet tool. Look at the temperature of my HD 4850 (it has NOT been overclocked) I hope the HD 5870 vapor-x does not have that same problem.

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d141/zaius1000/Temps.jpg?t=1266905537


What case have you got and what cooling do you have on the card that is INSANE hot.

Is it the lowprofile version cooler? as they're infamously hot! typically idling at around 70 even over here where its nice and cool most of the time.


I fully recommend changing the heatsink, or at-least taking it off and reapplying some good quality thermal paste : ]



Get a trad 2:p

I'm currently idling @ 30 and under-load I get to 42 :laugh:

Passive it sat at 39-40 and got to 56 under-load.

Although I have a very high airflow case due to its customised nature so my passive scores should probably be ignored <_<
 
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I took this shot of CPUID HW Manager seconds after exiting Crysis. using the snippet tool. Look at the temperature of my HD 4850 (it has NOT been overclocked) I hope the HD 5870 vapor-x does not have that same problem.

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d141/zaius1000/Temps.jpg?t=1266905537
My 5870 runs cooler than my 4850 IceQ4 Turbo ;)
What you need is better case ventilation, even a single slot 4850 (which has the worst cooling ever of any ATi card) should never run that hot.
You should seirously check if there is any dust build-up in your 4850.
 
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Monkey_Business

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I have a Gateway FX6710-01 gaming desktop. Every single graphics card I've owned since 2003 has ran at extremely high temperatures. Even if I bought an HD 5870 inside of a CoolerMaster HAF 932, it would still probably run at 80 idle and 110 load. Simply due to the fact that I had something to do with building it. I could go through 1,000 different graphics cards in 1,000 different setups and cases, and each and every single One would have the same problem.
 
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I have a Gateway FX6710-01 gaming desktop. Every single graphics card I've owned since 2003 has ran at extremely high temperatures. Even if I bought an HD 5870 inside of a CoolerMaster HAF 932, it would still probably run at 80 idle and 110 load. Simply due to the fact that I had something to do with building it. I could go through 1,000 different graphics cards in 1,000 different setups and cases, and each and every single One would have the same problem.

Dude.

The problem here is obviously case air flow.

That Stupid Gateway case does not even have an air vent in the top :)

It might look cool but as a high performance PC home it is next to useless.

Just get a cheap tower like an Antec 300 and a few fans and you will be amazed at the difference, then get a 5870 Vapor-X and you will have cool and quiet gaming for quite a while ;)
 

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Oh, I just saw this Thermalright Spitfire. It makes my HR-03 GTX look tiny. :laugh: That should do the trick. They also just released some VRM sinks like they had for the 4870.

When I pick up a 5870, I will without a doubt be cooling it with that setup plus some enzotech heatsinks on the memory.
 
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Oh, I just saw this Thermalright Spitfire. It makes my HR-03 GTX look tiny. :laugh: That should do the trick. They also just released some VRM sinks like they had for the 4870.

When I pick up a 5870, I will without a doubt be cooling it with that setup plus some enzotech heatsinks on the memory.



How's about this, even bigger!

http://specialtech.co.uk/spshop/customer/product.php?productid=10720&cat=1269&page=1



Its on a 5870 by the way to give you an idea of size.
 

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