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Before and After 4870 modifications

horse

horse

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Mar 22, 2006
Messages
1,229
Replaced the stock cooler (if you can even call it that) on my HD4870512 with the AC accelero S1 and slapped a 1850rpm Gentle Typhoon onto it. Instant 20+° temperature drop! It went from idling at 60-62°c to 38-40°c. That's like a 70° fahrenheit difference! That's insane!
Talk about a fire in your case.
I don't understand why ati doesn't use some type of heat pipe and radiator technology on their high end cards. While the coolers that they use now do incorporate heat pipes, they still don't work for shit. Plus they're heavy,bulky, the fans are annoying, and have to spin up even while idle at the desktop a lot of times just to keep the temps safe. They definitely need to come up with a better thermal solution, there's no reason why a video card should be running at 150° doing nothing but displaying a desktop background. Though I know I'm preaching to the choir here.


Some computer pr0n for your viewing pleasure:



 
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lmao The load temps are even quite a few degrees cooler than with the stock hsf at idle.
These numbers were recorded while running Crysis with very high spec in WinXP dx9 1280x1024 4xaa, 16xaf forced via ccc.

averaging between 54-56°C core temp during load. Good to go!
Also the memory is now running at 4.4Ghz effective. The card is the factory overclock edition from MSI which was at 4Ghz
as opposed to the stock 3.6Ghz effective memory speed.
 
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You might want to use GPU-Z to take a look at your VRM temps. Many people who have replaced the stock cooler have noticed them getting up to around 100c because apparently the current aftermarket coolers don't have heatsinks that can deal with them. But with the fan that you've strapped on, there's probably enough airflow to keep them in that safe range.

Edit: Oops, just took a closer look at the first screenshot. Indeed, nice cooling there. I'm debating if I want to spend more money on this card to keep it cooler, or just wait and see that the 5800 series brings to the table.
 
It astounds me the level of crappyness (vaild engineering term) of stock cooling on high end cards with the price they charge for them. Both with the systems themselves and the fan control. Both companies but espically Nvida feed us the "but its designed to run at 90C" crap. And maybe it is, but it will run longer when cooler.

This post is an excellent example as to why the first thing you should do is rip off the stock cooling of any card you want to keep for a while.

Good Show OP. Great info.
 
BillParrish said:
It astounds me the level of crappyness (vaild engineering term) of stock cooling on high end cards with the price they charge for them. Both with the systems themselves and the fan control. Both companies but espically Nvida feed us the "but its designed to run at 90C" crap. And maybe it is, but it will run longer when cooler.

This post is an excellent example as to why the first thing you should do is rip off the stock cooling of any card you want to keep for a while.

Good Show OP. Great info.
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as long as it never exceeds the max temp.. which it cant do.. the card will last just as long at 90C as it would at 50C.. not to mention the avg load time on a gfx card is around 3-4 hours a day.. the rest of the time its sitting idle.. then on top of that.. the typical life span of a gfx card is only 2-3 years before its replaced.. in the end its all about sales and profit.. the card die then oh well.. because they know you will go out and buy a newer version that will usually cost more money..

id say the biggest issue right now is not why they cant make a better heatsink design.. but why cant they make a better motherboard design that can support having cards with larger heatsinks on them in SLI or crossfire... this is the biggest issue and is why you still see these junk heatsinks on the current high end gfx cards from nvidia and ATI.. as far as i know there is only 1 heatsink(3 different designs but still the same heatsink) that can even work with crossfire or SLI cards.. even though they take up 3 extra slots each.. so if they could ever come up with a better layout design for the pci-e slots.. i think we would end up seeing better heatsinks..

but as for the OP'er.. nice work and good temps..
 
as long as it never exceeds the max temp.. which it cant do.. the card will last just as long at 90C as it would at 50C.. not to mention the avg load time on a gfx card is around 3-4 hours a day.. the rest of the time its sitting idle.. then on top of that.. the typical life span of a gfx card is only 2-3 years before its replaced..
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I disagree and wonder where you are getting your statistics from. Of interest would be how many "upgrades" are actually due to failures. Reams of data/studies/etc. support the fact that the cooler the better for electronics. The fact that keeping it cooler would keep it running beyond its "useful lifetime" all depends on the definition of "useful lifetime". I submit that for a lot of people out there 2 -3 years is not the normal "update" cycle. However if a person does always try to "keep up" with the latest and greatest I see your point and it is one commonly expressed, "I wont keep it that long so I don't care." . I guess the difference is that I care regardless of how long I intend to keep the card. So now the issue boils down a personal philosophy thing - eh to each his own - and I am way too old to try and make someone think the way I do. Great thing about America, so far no one can force us to change or not change the cooling on our video cards. We can do what makes us happy or makes sense for our situation.


in the end its all about sales and profit.. the card die then oh well.. because they know you will go out and buy a newer version that will usually cost more money..
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Agree about that 100%. The nVida denial of the gpu substrate/fill issue is an excellent example. I also think the companies agree with your first point. From their point of view why improve and put cost into the card for a cooling system that will help it last longer. Not condusive to their goals. I compare it to the Automobile companies, a well maintained a car should last 200,000 miles but every year they do their best to get you to buy a new one (which is typcally exactly the same as the old one with very minor improvements).

id say the biggest issue right now is not why they cant make a better heatsink design.. but why cant they make a better motherboard design that can support having cards with larger heatsinks on them in SLI or crossfire... this is the biggest issue and is why you still see these junk heatsinks on the current high end gfx cards from nvidia and ATI.. as far as i know there is only 1 heatsink(3 different designs but still the same heatsink) that can even work with crossfire or SLI cards.. even though they take up 3 extra slots each.. so if they could ever come up with a better layout design for the pci-e slots.. i think we would end up seeing better heatsinks..
Click to expand...

Preaching to the choir there but the BTX debacle comes to mind. But yea, who the hell thought of mounting the cards upside down anyway ? Being an ex design engineer I know how things tend to "evolve" as opposed to "break new ground" and how difficult it is to predict the future. Much less to convince marketing to pay for the "break through". Keep in mind 80% or more of the desktop PC's currently in service do not even have a video card. It is doubtful the engineer(s) that gave us ATX considered high performance gaming a compelling design critera. But dear Holy Gods we sure could use some innovation on board layout. Hey at least they attempt to exhaust vidoe card the heat out of the case now. That only took 25 years to go mainstream.


the neat thing is that people can read both our comments and decide what they want to do based on the OPs kind sharing of information. Win Win
 
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Agree about that 100%. The nVida denial of the gpu substrate/fill issue is an excellent example. I also think the companies agree with your first point. From their point of view why improve and put cost into the card for a cooling system that will help it last longer. Not condusive to their goals. I compare it to the Automobile companies, a well maintained a car should last 200,000 miles but every year they do their best to get you to buy a new one (which is typcally exactly the same as the old one with very minor improvements).
Click to expand...

Yep. We're a consumer society. More we consume, the better.

But dear Holy Gods we sure could use some innovation on board layout
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Amen.

Hopefully a new form factor comes out within the next few years, though I don't see it happening. There's still a fair amount CPUs and GPUs can go in the current system. We'll just have to wait until there comes a time when numerous of the large players find it more economically and technologically viable to make a changeover. Not to mention the amount of time it'd take for them all to agree on something.
 
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