Anyone ever DIY a heatsink for a graphics card?

N

nalc

[H]ard|Gawd
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I've got a HD 4650 in my HTPC. It's a got a grand total of about 0.1 pounds of anodized aluminum with a pathetic 30mm or so fan. Believe it's this model: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102907

It's not super loud, but I'm in the pursuit of getting my machine as quiet as I can without spending more money.

I had a passive card (HD 5450) in there, but I've got no case fans, and the passive card overheated, so I installed a 60mm Vantec Stealth on a fan controller, turned down all the way, in the case and angled it at the card, but the card didn't meet the minimum specs for WMC to use it for TV, so I had to upgrade to the 4650.

I looked at aftermarket coolers, but there's nothing designed for low profile. And I'm legitimately low profile, it's not like I have a low profile card with an inch or two of free space above it.

So I'm sitting there thinking, I can't go any wider, but why can't I go taller? The current heatsink is a relatively tiny single slot cooler. Even with the Vantec Stealth blowing on it, I still need to crank the GPU card to >30% in Trixx to keep my temps in the 60s. I don't need single slot, I've got a microATX mobo and no expansion cards, so there's nothing stopping me from using a 4-slot cooler besides one, you know, not existing.

So I grabbed an old P4 heatsink I had laying around, and I thought that if I cut it down a bit with the hacksaw, then drilled a couple holes in it to line up with the GPU mounting pattern, and mounted it with some machine screws and some springs, I could make a pretty badass passive heatsink that's actually big enough to function with only a little bit of case airflow. I mean, I could just go out and buy a lower power consumption latest gen low profile passive card (22nm should be a lot cooler than my 55nm 4650), but it seems to me like passive cards only have the bare minimum to get away with in a case with a substantial amount of airflow. My HD 5450 had a tiny TDP, but in a tight case without fans, it overheated like crazy. My 4650 is old enough and cheap enough for me to not be heartbroken if this experiment goes wrong, but I wanted to see if anyone had done a similar project and might have some tips. I figure that most of a big P4 heatsink should be plenty with just a whisper of a breeze from the Vantec Stealth.
 
I wouldn't bother modifying that heat sink. First of all, its designed to be sufficient at handling the heat load. Secondly, you wont be playing crysis on that card anytime soon. Its good for what it is really. If you want control over your fan speed, look for a program on google called speedfan.
 
I've experimented with different sinks on low end gpus, and I've actually replaced a (very) small active cooler on an FX5200 with an old clamp-down Socket 478 P4 sink and some thermal adhesive. It worked just fine, however that is a ~25W TDP card, and you're dealing with a 55W card. Now, consider that the Socket 478 P4s ranged from 66-89W, and the sink had a fan on it. So - I would infer that that particular sink would be overwhelmed or at least riding the line on a 55W GPU. I would definitely have doubts about a 'modified' sink being sufficient. Of course, there's no harm in experimenting, and we would love to hear the results! If you have access to other sinks then definitely test them out, do test runs by affixing the sinks to the card with heavy rubber bands and dont forget thermal compound, good luck!
 
Taranabas: Wow, had no idea that the 4650 had a 55w TDP, maybe I'll look into a more efficient card. I was planning on having a 60mm case fan pointed at it and maybe even ducting to it, but then again, I'm chopping 30% off of it, and with that high TDP of a card, I'm going to have a bad time.

M3Roc: As I said, I'm looking to eliminate the noisiest component in my HTPC, which is a flimsy heatsink with a 2,000 rpm 30mm fan on it, and a 60mm case fan blowing on it. I can control the fan fine in Trixx, but if I drop it any lower than 30%, the card overheats. I'm not saying that the existing heatsink is incapable of cooling the card, just that it's a very small heatsink with minimal surface area and therefore needs some ambient case airflow as well as running the built in fan at a pretty high speed.
 
There was a review on Tom's hardware a while back of various silent cards, I can't seem to find it but this is one of the cards they featured:
Sapphire Fanless 7750:
sap-hd7750-ult.jpg



I came across this too, which looks pretty promising, and at 11$ it's probably worth a look. Supposed to be good for any card up to 70W http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835127101

Also, there is a product called the Deepcool Dracula available which is compatible with a number of Radeons and Geforces, including your 4650. It's actually capable of cooling a 7970! Of course, it's not cheap either (80 USD), so it depends how much you're willing to shell out for silence in your htpc.
 
I've been curious about this myself, but I didn't know how to ask the question. I want to put something like a Thermalright HR02 Macho on my GTX 580.
 
Taranabas;1039529453 I came across this too said:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835127101[/URL]
Click to expand...

I saw that too, and glanced at some reviews. Looks like it's old (people talking about 6600GTs and Radeon X1900s with it), but it's probably a steal at $11 if it works well for modern cards.

But, I did take your suggestion in the above post and went with a newer card. I picked up the MSI GT620 for $15 AMIR yesterday.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127694

It's got a bigger heatsink and fan, and has a lower TDP by a few watts, and is 40nm instead of 55nm.
 
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