Accelero S1 on 7900GT

[kush]

Finally ditched the crappy stock cooling on my (EVGA) N584 7900GT. And so far, I couldn't be happier w/ the results.

Got the Accelero S1 from eWiz, $17.75 (now @ $18.28, jumped like RIGHT after I ordered ). Shipping was a bit high @ $7.50 (*ground* Sunnyvale, CA -> SoCal though)..But even w/ that I got the cooler like 2 days later (before I got back from a Vegas trip I went on; stupid UPS dropping off w/ NO signature again; used to have good luck w/ them but they've been doing this crap alot recently). Anyway, even w/ the shipping charge & CA tax, it ended up being ~$12 cheaper than Newegg for example - nice RR #'s as well, so I felt a bit better about using an unknown (to me) retailer in this case. And still about $5-6 cheaper than had I of gone w/ Directron (the next cheapest e-tailer). Anyway onto a few pics ...

Cleaned core, mounted the ramsinks - which by the way the TIM sucks as you may have read elsewhere. I even tried heating them w/ a hair dryer in hopes of helping them gum them up a bit, which didn't really help, so I ended up NOT using them at all (for now at least). Silly thought, but with the previous cooler being so inadequate, I figure I still may be cooler there, since the RAM isn't having to fight to get cooler via the same piece of hot copper...


To give an idea of the size of the cooler on the card, vs. the still mounted stock cooler..


[Homer] D'oh [/Homer] - Notice anything WRONG in this pic? Note: the cooler WAS mounted in this pic, albeit not completely tightened down yet


A Systool shot.

Note: previously I was looking @ lows of appx. ~55-62c, load peaks of between 75-82c (the cooler was NOT that dirty either, cleaned it out about a week previous). A pretty drastic drop I'd say, especially considering the card is STILL running in passive mode (will rig a 120mm (or 2) later on maybe. [edit] Avg desktop boot temp is more like 44c, 41c was from a stone cold boot.

I didn't gain any kind of extra overclock - I still max out @ ~570/1.63. Also note, I'd say I have above average case cooling, a TT Armor 8003 - the one w/ 120 in/out, and a 250mm on the side panel (which does NOT cover the video card btw)...As well as 2x120s in pull mode on my radiator, although they're rigged and the rad certainly isn't getting proper cool outside air, but I digress....*All* fans running on a controller @ ~7v though.

I have no hesitations that this cooler will perform beautifully even w/ an overvolt to the core (perhaps still passively even)... I'm still not ready to void my warranty though, so maybe later.

 

[blade52x]

Volt mod that card now.

I have a VF900 on my 7900GT, and I'm running the 1.55V mod, which takes my core up to 685MHz stable. My memory on default voltage does 900MHz stable. The performance gain was pretty large... I mean going from 520/750 to 680/900 resulted in a nice performance increase

And use an ink pen - you can easily erase it and that part on voiding warranty "never happened" - but doesn't eVGA warranty overclocking? Or does that not include volt modding?

 

[kush]

They do allow overclocking, but NOT volt modding.... It may be easily erasable, but it just seems scummy to do so - they were good to me through multiple RMAs, it just wouldn't feel right...So if I do it, I would have to consider it a no warranty card..But then again, it is getting a bit long in the tooth as they say, if it dies I can just put a newer, possibly mroe powerful card (by the time G9x comes). Don't need terribly high performance, since once I decide whether I want a q6600, or wait for Peyryn, this rig will become an HTPC/backup folding box (iow unlikely I will do any heavy gaming on it then). On a related matter, Rat Shack has the friggin pen (1/2 the price of anywhere online, not inc. shipping), but ONLY in certain stores, and only 1 of which in the general West LA area has it apparently (no ship-to-store for me)...Kinda sucks since I have a store like just a few blocks up from me .

Anyway, main reason I'm posting here to update...As anyone in So Cal knows it's been damn hot (and HUMID) for a while - yesterday was 90+/50% in Santa Monica ffs; DAMN hot for literally a few blocks from sand, still better than the valley @ 115 though... But I digress --- MAX systool reported temp now up to 64c, still a far cry from 80+, it may have even hit 90+ in this weather w/ the old cooler.

ps Not that it's needed at this point at least, but can anyone recommend any TIM that will actually allow my ramsinks to stick? And NO, I don't want to use anything like AS's thermal epoxy...