2+-year-old Sytrin KuFormula VF1 Plus works great on HD 4850

A

aldamon

Supreme [H]ardness
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I bought a Sytrin KuFormula VF1 Plus for $42.98 shipped from Newegg on 4/1/06 and I just slapped it on my HD 4850 with great results. This is the fourth card I've used this cooler on:

  • GeForce 7900 GT
  • Radeon X1900 XT
  • GeForce 8800 GT
  • Radeon HD 4850

Here are some pics. Sorry about the dust on Pic 3. The cooler is old and I forgot to wipe off the fan. :p

4850_sytrin_3.jpg


4850_sytrin_4.jpg


4850_sytrin_1.jpg


4850_sytrin_2.jpg
 
I popped it on fresh out of the box. The (poor) performance of the stock cooler is known and I want to push this thing with BIOS/VGPU mods.
 
So before even trying the card you pulled off the HSF, voiding your warranty without knowing if the hardware was working or not?
 
The HSF will go back on.... ^^

Interesting cooler. Kinda expensive though - but at least it's a recycle. :)
 
Down8 said:
The HSF will go back on.... ^^

Interesting cooler. Kinda expensive though - but at least it's a recycle. :)
Click to expand...

Sure, but don't you think they may notice an alternate thermal paste was used if he had to RMA?
 
inotocracy said:
Sure, but don't you think they may notice an alternate thermal paste was used if he had to RMA?
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In my experience, there are no problems with RMAs, period as long as you haven't noticeably wrecked the item, as in dropped it or something. They don't have time to look over a card and do visual/chemical analysis on the the TIM.

Down8 said:
Interesting cooler. Kinda expensive though - but at least it's a recycle. :)
Click to expand...

Recycle x3. Less than $10 per card at this point. :D

800/1100 @ 1.3V with pencil mod:

4850_sytrin_4.jpg
 
The Sytrin was always a good cooler, far better than the Zalmans.

It just never took off because everyone was too busy buying Zalmans or Arctic Coolers.

I'm sure you'd yield even better results using a 120mm fan.
 
The main issue was the blower. It was of poor quality, and the height of the card. :)
 
matrix563 said:
how did u cover the vrms?
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Actually, I'm not too worried about that. I'm curious to know what the stock cooler did, if anything, for the VRMs. If you look at the pictures, the VRMs and the RAM were "attached" to the same copper heatsink as the incredibly hot GPU with globs of crappy TIM and were enclosed in an almost air-tight area. How is that cooling? Seems like more of an insulator to me.

If I notice any problems I'll attach some sinks to them. I have a fan blowing between my HDDs to the right of the card which should contribute some air flow to the area.

snowysnowcones said:
Nice OC! Let's see some benches! :)
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I don't have Crysis yet, and I got rid of a lot of games when I sold my 8800 GT last month, but here's my first 3DMark06 run with Vista 64, no tweaks, and a Q6600 @ 3.52 GHz:

15,059:

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=7355972

I'm going to play through Prey, Crysis, Assassin's Creed, and probably STALKER with this beauty.

Vengance_01 said:
The main issue was the blower. It was of poor quality, and the height of the card. :)
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I've never had any problems with the blower. It does hang low, but there is actually room behind the fan to fit small PCI cards. The onboard NIC on my P5K died so I have a small 3COM Gig-E NIC behind the fan.
 
Vengance_01 said:
The main issue was the blower. It was of poor quality, and the height of the card. :)
Click to expand...

Well, then instead of buying the plus buy the regular one without the blower and slap a 120mm fan on it. And they were cheap as hell.

This cooler was like the Xigmatek S128-3 of video cards, but it wasn't well marketing or promoted and people continued buying Zalmans when this could outperform the fuck out of it.
 
But the blower gives much better performance. But AC S1 is the best bang for your buck. 20$ shipped is a steal. :)
 
Ok 2 questions.

Are you using AMD's overclock tool to change the GPU speed?
Where can I find info on the pencil mod?
 
jebo_4jc said:
Ok 2 questions.

Are you using AMD's overclock tool to change the GPU speed?
Where can I find info on the pencil mod?
Click to expand...

I've been using the new overclocking tool to experiment because it's easier than flashing constantly, but I use the BIOS mod for final clocks.

Vengance_01 answered your other question. I'm ~1.37V right now and 840/1100. I pushed it over 1.4V but it seemed like it was too much. The card was squealing. :p

Make sure you flash the BIOS to 1.2V to max out the soft VGPU mod before pencil modding. Then you won't have to use the pencil as much.
 
I am going for 750-800ish and thats it. But for some reason every time I try the pencil mod, I can not get any increase despite doing mods like this in the past.
 
I'm afraid of bricking them. Heard horror stories.
 
Vengance_01 said:
I can not get any increase despite doing mods like this in the past.
Click to expand...

I had the same problem until I switched pencils. I could only get 1.3V with an old #2, but a BIC mechanical pencil has taken me to 1.4+.

Kuyt said:
Obviously you haven't seen the reviews for it.

The Blower never gave better performance that a fan. It was a loud pos if anything.

http://sg.vr-zone.com/articles/Sytrin_KuFormula_VF1_Plus_GPU_Cooler/4259-5.html
Click to expand...

Uh, did you even look at the numbers?

Blower: 54.50/56.25/61.13

Fan: 56.50/60.13/69.88
 
aldamon said:
I had the same problem until I switched pencils. I could only get 1.3V with an old #2, but a BIC mechanical pencil has taken me to 1.4+.



Uh, did you even look at the numbers?

Blower: 54.50/56.25/61.13

Fan: 56.50/60.13/69.88
Click to expand...
I Think I may just stick to the soft mod. After playing Crysis temps are about 67-70C. Again this is passive so I think thats a feat all on its own. I only have 3 case fans;)
 
I've just received my Sytrin Kuformula VF1 Plus from Shiny hardware via fleabay. It cost me £15 inc postage and unfortunately feautres Ni plated Cu so I'll be lapping that off when I get me a glass block to ensure I have a flat surface! I'll report back with my own temps; I'm not gonna mess too much with the card, maybe a pencil VMod just :D
 
Got her on, had to use a couple of motherboard standoff washers on the back of the card as the long screws that go through the card from the cooler prevent me from winding the retaining nuts on with a screwdriver; I thought the card felt very thin, good old GeCube eh?!

Tried a 92mm Silverstone fan (the one the sits in 80mm mounts) blowing onto the heatsink and still get nearly 100 Deg C under full load and that fan is a bit noisy. Stuck an 80mm Xilence 16dB fan on there sucking air and chucking it out of the ventilation holes at the side of the case but STILL hitting about 100 Deg C under auto-tune :confused:

It's a bit quieter than the stock heatsink at least!
 
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