What's the best passive/quiet cooler for a 9700?

[grazzhoppa]

I have a Sapphire 9500 that softmods to a 9700 beautifully. The stock heatsink/fan is tiny, circluar, gold-colored, and feels like plastic when you tap on it. Yet the core can reach 368mhz (default is 277) and is ATI-tool clear. I mention this because I don't want to lose that great overclock.

I moved my pc into the room where I sleep and it's quite loud for sleeping next to, so I am getting rid of all unneccesary fans. I don't have enough money to build a silent PC from scratch, or a faster video card, but I'm willing to spend $50 for a passive or extremelly quiet VGA heatsink so I can still have the core overclocked so high for games.

From preliminary research, the Thermaltake Schooner and the Zalman VF700-Cu look like they would be able to handle my card's overclock. I'd prefer to get the Schooner because that has no fan at all, but I'm not entirely sure if it could make my card reach 368mhz on the core.

I'm just looking for some advice about whether the Schooner could do a hefty overclock on a 9500/9700, and I'm looking for suggestions for the best passive heatsinks out there.

 

[djbbenn]

Well the Zalmans are quite...and they cool very well. You can set them for different speed. But the schooner a completly noiseless. I'd go with the zalman where they cool better, and they aren't that loud on 5v.

-Dan

 

[gR3iF]

hm when the schooner can handle a x800se it should handle yours too.
i would get with the arctic cooling vga silencer rev3 at low speed its very quiet
but the best would be a cooler master cool viva the fan is inaudible

 

[Wam7]

I would definitely go with the Zalman VF700-cu. At 5V settings you won't hear it but it will still cool very well and should handle your 9700 no problem. Even at the 12V setting it's a low hum. It's very easy to change what speed you run the fan at using the supplied adapter.

 

[grazzhoppa]

Thanksfor the info everyone .

Do you think I could get a better overclock with the Zalman, or did I hit the limit of the R300 core? I wouldn't mind putting the fan on 12v when I'm playing a game.

I've actually figured out that 1 older harddrive is making the most racket, and it sounds like a high pitched fan noise. To replace that, I have a choice between a PATA or a SATA version. I usually don't buy new harddrives, as I reuse them when I upgrade a computer so I'm a bit worried about compatibility in the future.

Do you think motherboards still come with two PATA connections in, lets say, 5 years?

I ask cause the SATA is about $10 more and I'll have to buy a $3 SATA power converter thing. The power converter increases the shipping $5 (the thing weighs a few ounces, why they can't throw it in with the harddrive is beyond me), so the total price of a SATA drive is almost $20 more than the PATA.

 

[grazzhoppa]

Just wanted to say that I got the zalman vf700 and it's great. Like you guys said, it is very quiet with 5 volts on the fan, and it cools great. The arctic silver hasn't "settled" yet, and the core is maxing out at 400, so I expect in a few days the core can run at 400 with no artifacts. The thing also blows a fair amount of air over the memory. This cooler is the best money I've spent on any computer.


I'm tempted to put the fan on 12v and see how high the core can go.... or figure out how to rig up a switch so I could change to 12v for games and the quiet 5v for everything else