Cooler for X800 -Arctic cooler ATi Silencer 5 or Zalman Vf700?

[infrared]

I personally like to set the fan speed with the profiles i'm using. Eg, set 100% for your max overclock, and 30% for default... etc. Here's some Screenshots of the way i have ATITool setup:

 

[superbrett2000]

I bouth the Artic Cooler (got a terrific deal at only $20 new) and its been great. I Idle at about 35 degrees C and max out at around 60 degrees C while staying nice and quiet. My card is an X850 Pro unlocked and overclocked to an X850 XT PE. I've heard great things about Zalman products, but the selling point to me on the Artic Cooler was how it exhausts the heat out the back of my machine.

 

[Azn Tr14dZ]

I have the Zalman, and it's great. The reason I got it is because 1) it's cheaper for me and 2) if you already have good airflow in you case, it shouldn't matter much. I'm going liquid soon anyway so I might give it away, it's also lapped so it gets lower temps.

When it's not hot in Arizona, on a normal day, I get about 33 idle/47-49 load.

 

[NeoKrieger]

Zalman for me. I'll take reliability over a few degrees any day. I've got 4 80mm case fans running through a fan control bay and the zalman is no louder that any other fan in the box (CPU and chipset included) with every case fan turned down to MIN, I still cant hear anything from inside the case.

 

[Azn Tr14dZ]

^Same hear. I don't care too much about noise though because I use a headset and whenever I'm on the comp, I'm listening to music on the headset.

 

[zekrahminator]

My X850XT stock everything except fan speeds runs about 37*C idle and 62*C load. Running stock cooler at 32% makes the video card A LOT quieter then stock, loses you very little cooling performance, and doesn't ruin the airflow in your case. Oh yeah I also modded my X850XT a little bit, removed heatspreader for rear memory and replaced it with copper RAMsinks. It performs very nicely, but I'm going to put an ATISilencer5 on it soon because for silence, cooling, and the fun of modding .

 

[infrared]

here's a few useful modifications you can make to the silencer that i've done...

1. Gently polished the cooler in the area of the gpu, then used arcticlean to clean the area, and applied a thin layer of AS5 to the gpu. This helps temps a lot.

2. Scrap the thermal pads on the backplate of the cooler. you need to replace the rubber o rings with a plastic sleeve, then sand down the plastic spacer that rests on the back of the pcb behind the core. You might need to put some spacers between the backplate and the arm that goes across the two posts for the gpu.

Worked awsome for me

 

[Pinchy]

I bouth the Artic Cooler (got a terrific deal at only $20 new) and its been great. I Idle at about 35 degrees C and max out at around 60 degrees C while staying nice and quiet. My card is an X850 Pro unlocked and overclocked to an X850 XT PE. I've heard great things about Zalman products, but the selling point to me on the Artic Cooler was how it exhausts the heat out the back of my machine.

Is that US dollars though?

Also, is there any difference between the X800 and X850 series, besides higher clock speeds and the fan? The only difference i can see between the two (besides the clock speeds) is the newer R480 chip, which makes it heat up a lot more

Thanks for all the help and all the replies!

Cheers
Pinchy

 

[Scheich]

look at infrared´s speed.. 645 mhz.. thats amazing. i should have spend that 40 euro more on the gto2 instead buying the 800xl. all that really counts is gpu speed, pixelshader are nice, but they dont help fps at 1024 or 1280. ac are sold for 14 euro in germany, i like them.
newer revisions like 480 produce less heat, except at top speed of course

 

[infrared]

The price of the x850xt's has come down dramatically, very nearly the same as the gto2. If your looking to buy a new card, go with one of those, since they clock a lot better than the new versions of the x800gto2's. The R430's used in the x800xl are terrible overclockers, when i voltmodded my old x800xl, i got nothing more out of the core, except more heat... dud chip perhaps

Hmmm, i just got an old chipset cooler to cut up and use on my vregs and power choke coils on my card... using those voltages the power circuits were getting extemely hot.

 

[Pinchy]

Got the cooler today

Here are the temps:

Stock
Idle
GPU: 39*C
GPU Ambient: 34*C

Full load (ATi Tools furry box thing for 5 mins)
GPU: 71*C
GPU Ambient:44*C

Arctic cooler
Idle
GPU: 31*C
GPU Ambient: 30*C

Full load (ATi Tools furry box thing for 5 mins)
GPU: 48*C
GPU Ambient:45*C

From what the AC has offered me, i would recommend to all. It has even pushed my CPU down 5*C and my hard disk down 3*C

The only thing with it is that the pre-applied compound wasnt in the right position for the back 3 RAM chips. It only covered half of them.

Anyways, thanks for all the help everyone!

Cheers
Pinchy