CF 5870 Aftermarket Cooling

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michalius

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Nov 10, 2010
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Here's my situation. I just bought a friend's XFX 5870 to go along with my ASUS 5870 reference. The XFX card is interestingly about an inch shorter than my 5870, with a large fan in the middle, so it's not quite reference design. The guy I bought it from did tell me it was reference.

This went in for X-Fire with my other card in a Storm Scout on a Crosshair IV mobo. Everything works fine. However, the new XFX card is crazy loud, even with manually adjusting the fan speed. Also, the fan on my ASUS card is slowly giving out (gets off balance when I first boot, and need to basically stop it with my hand to get it back on balance) and I don't really want to mess with RMA stuff.

Additionally, the CM Storm doesn't have enough room for the 5870s to fit, so I've modified my HDD cage for the bottom card (ASUS) to go partially in the HDD cage. The top card (XFX) is short enough to where it fits right into my 5.25" bay. As a result, the cards must be in the 1st and second PCI-E slots on my Crosshair IV to fit.

So, what I'm looking for is a good aftermarket solution that only takes up 2 slots, allowing me to use the 1st and 2nd PCI-E slots. I've checked out the TRAD2, not sure whether or not that'll fit. The Zalman VF3000A looks like it takes up 3 slots. The Accelero Extreme most definately will not work with two right next to each other.

With all of these specific requirements, should I just bite the bullet and get a new case so I can put the cards in the 1 and 3 slots?
 
There is no aftermarket GPU cooler that will only use the same two slots the original cooler did and still be able to cool your 5870s. Not to mention the VRMs.

Though with that said, The Zalman VF3000A will actually make your Asus card shorter as (when mounted) the cooler is only very slightly longer then the card itself.

You'll probably be able to use it on the XFX card so long as it has its own VRM heatsink that clears the VF3000A cooler. The one that comes with the cooler is somewhat low profile and only works on the reference boards. I know there are a lot of negative Newegg reviews about people killing their cards because they tried to use the Zalman VRM cooler even though the instructions (in large loud letters mind you) blatantly tell you not to use it if you have a non reference cooler.

Both my cards idle about 10C above room temperature even when on the internet and I have my 932 fans connected to my board to slow them down. Just using the internet the system is almost silent even though it sits on top of my desk right next to me. The top card literly sits on the bottom card and pulls the heat off of it and yet I played ~2 hours strait of Cysis Warhead one evening and the top card barely crossed 70C on all three GPU sensors while the VRMs hover around 80C. The bottom card on the other hand ran almost the same GPU temperatures while the VRMs were 20C cooler. I need to move my PSU to the top so I can give the top card some breathing room and I think the VRMs will cool off a bit then.

Also fwiw I run a NH-D14 passive. I'm running stock clocks for now but still I get ~1.225v to the core when the 21x multiplier kicks in. Even so with both of my 5870s dumping all that warm air in to the case, all four cores stayed just below 70C. I love the setup since it is so quite even when gaming. After having a 4870x2 in a Centurion 5 case, I never thought it would be possible to have so much power and be so quiet too! I just wish Zalman would stop being stupid and wire up a PWM circuit like they did for Zotac so I could just plug the fans in to the cards and not use their stupid external regulator. Hoping to fix that soon though with my own PWM circuit.
 
I would pick up a couple of cheap Accelero Twin Turbos and a new case if you can't get them to fit.
 
It really sucks that Thermalright never invested in creating Crossfire/SLi friendly VRM heatsinks. I even emailed them a few times trying to convince them to do so, but I guess they never sold very well. Otherwise I would've suggested the T-Rad2, but because of it's very low profile (takes up three slots with fans mounted) it requires a very low profile VRM cooler which is tough to come by outside of Thermalright's own offerings.
 
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