GTX 480 Spitfire Cooler - Wow!

imyourzero said:
I'm tempted to dump my TRUE for an H50 and try this thing out, but that would end up making my 480 a really expensive upgrade...wow. My temps aren't bad now, but it would be awesome to have load temps of 66 degrees! This thing is sick. It's a big brute force cooling solution for a big brute force graphics card. Quite fitting to have a ridiculous, over-the-top cooler for a GPU that's has a rep for having the same qualities, lol.
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Don't!

That thing is a POS.

It's runs hot, and it leaks.

It shorted out my MOBO.
 
imyourzero said:
I'm tempted to dump my TRUE for an H50 and try this thing out, but that would end up making my 480 a really expensive upgrade...wow. My temps aren't bad now, but it would be awesome to have load temps of 66 degrees! This thing is sick. It's a big brute force cooling solution for a big brute force graphics card. Quite fitting to have a ridiculous, over-the-top cooler for a GPU that's has a rep for having the same qualities, lol.
Click to expand...

The only downside is that it will heat up the inside of your case quite a bit. My HR-03GTX does and a GTX480 actually runs at least as hot if not hotter than a 280 somehow.
 
mrnoob123 said:
Don't!

That thing is a POS.

It's runs hot, and it leaks.

It shorted out my MOBO.
Click to expand...

Plenty of us are using an H50 with no issues. Granted I've got a case with 2 top exhaust fans to take the heat right out of my case and it works like a dream. Very quiet and keeps my temps just fine.

Without good airflow out though, it's not the best choice, esp with video cards that also dump hot air into the case instead of just out the back slots. This is something I've been thinking about a lot as I need to upgrade my video cards pretty bad, but don't want to add more heat into the case if I can help it.

I've always preferred top exhaust fans since heat wants to rise up anyway, and it just makes things work smoothly.
 
Limahl said:
Plenty of us are using an H50 with no issues. Granted I've got a case with 2 top exhaust fans to take the heat right out of my case and it works like a dream. Very quiet and keeps my temps just fine.

Without good airflow out though, it's not the best choice, esp with video cards that also dump hot air into the case instead of just out the back slots. This is something I've been thinking about a lot as I need to upgrade my video cards pretty bad, but don't want to add more heat into the case if I can help it.

I've always preferred top exhaust fans since heat wants to rise up anyway, and it just makes things work smoothly.
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Even when I had 1900rpm slipstreams in my Antec 1200 the temps went up a bit and there was a ton of airflow and noise which is why I swapped out those fans with low speed yate loons which work well but my case temp goes up when my video card is under load. Not by a lot but I still have a ton of fans in that case.
 
Limahl said:
Plenty of us are using an H50 with no issues. Granted I've got a case with 2 top exhaust fans to take the heat right out of my case and it works like a dream. Very quiet and keeps my temps just fine.

Without good airflow out though, it's not the best choice, esp with video cards that also dump hot air into the case instead of just out the back slots. This is something I've been thinking about a lot as I need to upgrade my video cards pretty bad, but don't want to add more heat into the case if I can help it.

I've always preferred top exhaust fans since heat wants to rise up anyway, and it just makes things work smoothly.
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Ooh, that's good.

There a good chace that it might not blow out your whole build.

(I feel so much better now!)

K, Everythings good now!
 
Its 3 slot cooler but uses non stock fans. Gonna wait till comes out in mid June or July. I am getting two of them.
 
Hmm that does look very tempting if I want to do a single card solution. Thanks for the heads up.
 
mrnoob123 said:
Don't!

That thing is a POS.

It's runs hot, and it leaks.

It shorted out my MOBO.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the heads up, but I have to wonder if that's an isolated incident as yours is the first horror story I've seen. Sorry about your bad luck with it!

BababooeyHTJ said:
The only downside is that it will heat up the inside of your case quite a bit. My HR-03GTX does and a GTX480 actually runs at least as hot if not hotter than a 280 somehow.
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Good point. I do have pretty good airflow with the HAF 932 though (assuming this thing will clear the side fan) and I'd probably be willing to deal with in-case temps being a bit warmer if it meant that the GTX 480 would run a lot cooler (not to mention quieter).

Limahl said:
Plenty of us are using an H50 with no issues. Granted I've got a case with 2 top exhaust fans to take the heat right out of my case and it works like a dream. Very quiet and keeps my temps just fine.

Without good airflow out though, it's not the best choice, esp with video cards that also dump hot air into the case instead of just out the back slots. This is something I've been thinking about a lot as I need to upgrade my video cards pretty bad, but don't want to add more heat into the case if I can help it.

I've always preferred top exhaust fans since heat wants to rise up anyway, and it just makes things work smoothly.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the input. I do have a large top exhaust fan. I had the Antec 900 and liked it pretty well, but after owning the Rocketfish case I decided I couldn't commit to the 1200 despite the fact that I knew it has great airflow. The drive management in those Antec cases leaves much to be desired IMO, and was my primary reason for choosing not to use the 1200.

Another reason I'm considering the H50 is because at this point, should I decide to add another 6GB of RAM, I can't use DIMMs with tall heatspreaders because the TRUE doesn't provide enough clearance above the slot closest to the CPU socket. The H50 would allow me plenty of room to populate all 6 DIMM slots without worry, plus accommodate this massive GPU cooler (again, assuming it clears the HAF 932's side fan).
 
Night_Hawk-19 said:
Its 3 slot cooler but uses non stock fans. Gonna wait till comes out in mid June or July. I am getting two of them.
Click to expand...

I'm waiting for this..

My 470 runs fine on it's OC (800/1600/2000) in everything except Furmark and OCCT because of heat.Vantage/3dmark06 looped 30 times , kombustor, gaming the card never goes over 80 and will run for hours.OCCT and Furmark push it past 90 in minutes and kill the OC :eek: Think I will just go back to stock till this thing comes out to be safe.

I really think Thermalright dropped the ball on a cooler that's incompatible with such a high number of setups. I notice they make no mention of any other coolers working with the 400 series. They officially announced it would be supported by older models such as the HR-03 but now there is no mention of compatibility. Fermi too hot for the old stuff I'm guessin
 
imyourzero said:
Thanks for the heads up, but I have to wonder if that's an isolated incident as yours is the first horror story I've seen. Sorry about your bad luck with it!



Good point. I do have pretty good airflow with the HAF 932 though (assuming this thing will clear the side fan) and I'd probably be willing to deal with in-case temps being a bit warmer if it meant that the GTX 480 would run a lot cooler (not to mention quieter).



Thanks for the input. I do have a large top exhaust fan. I had the Antec 900 and liked it pretty well, but after owning the Rocketfish case I decided I couldn't commit to the 1200 despite the fact that I knew it has great airflow. The drive management in those Antec cases leaves much to be desired IMO, and was my primary reason for choosing not to use the 1200.

Another reason I'm considering the H50 is because at this point, should I decide to add another 6GB of RAM, I can't use DIMMs with tall heatspreaders because the TRUE doesn't provide enough clearance above the slot closest to the CPU socket. The H50 would allow me plenty of room to populate all 6 DIMM slots without worry, plus accommodate this massive GPU cooler (again, assuming it clears the HAF 932's side fan).
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No problem.

it's just poor construction, 1/ every 10,000 leaks and kills someones build.

Lucky me.

Even before it blew out, it had terrible temps.

Higer than my old Hyper 212+/
 
Actually, would the GTX 480 draw less power if the temps go down? I've read that power usage goes up as heat goes up because it becomes more inefficient at higher temperatures, wonder if the inverse would be true as well?

Oh, and we need pics of this thing installed.
 
Installed the spitfire on my 480 today. Took me about 8 hours.

1) Stripped screw in gtx480. Had to use dremel to cut it out.
2) Mounting the spitfire alone on the gtx480 was clunky as hell. I highly recommend a 2nd person
3) Couldn't get the card into my cm stacker. The PSU cage at the top was blocking the spitfire, so I had to spend about 3-4 hours dremeling out all the rivets
4) Couldn't remove the psu cage after removing rivets since it was wider than it could go down, had to cut it in half to pull the bastard out
5) Finally seated the card, which goes over my x-fi. Boot up: x-fi not recognized
6) Spend another hour getting the x-fi to recognize, finally it recognizes.

That's about it so far lmao.

Edit: ran a test in dirt 2. Before load temp was about 88c with fan on auto
Now load temp is 55c with the 140mm thermalright fan. The fan is SUPER quiet even at full 12v it's only 900 RPM, I can't hear it over my cpu fans. Very pleased.

img_4c256ac251e2f.jpg

img_4c255974e8ec0.jpg
 
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what the vram temps like ? when you get chance run furmark. other than that this seems like the best air-cooled solution though i think some would say you might as well go water cooling if your going to spend that much on heatsinks
 
Can't tell your what vram temps are like since the gtx480 vram sensor is not enabled (can't access with software). It was 60 bucks for the cooler + 7 for the mount kit. Water starts with at least 120.
 
oh ok didn't know that. well some people would say your 1/2 there might as make the plunge and get the best performance. how does it run with furmark ?
 
coldstorm said:
oh ok didn't know that. well some people would say your 1/2 there might as make the plunge and get the best performance. how does it run with furmark ?
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Half? A good waterblock alone can run you twice as much as he paid for the heatsink. Then there is you pump, rad, reservoir, fittings, mounting stuff, tubing. Water cooling isn't even comparable with price.
 
I like the idea of the Spitfire but its just too big. Many cases wont fit it pointing downwards and a big air cooler on the CPU will stop it from pointing upwards.
 
Tudz said:
I like the idea of the Spitfire but its just too big. Many cases wont fit it pointing downwards and a big air cooler on the CPU will stop it from pointing upwards.
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Yea there was no way it was gonna fit facing downward with my true 120.
 
unrealsword said:
Installed the spitfire on my 480 today. Took me about 8 hours.

1) Stripped screw in gtx480. Had to use dremel to cut it out.
2) Mounting the spitfire alone on the gtx480 was clunky as hell. I highly recommend a 2nd person
3) Couldn't get the card into my cm stacker. The PSU cage at the top was blocking the spitfire, so I had to spend about 3-4 hours dremeling out all the rivets
4) Couldn't remove the psu cage after removing rivets since it was wider than it could go down, had to cut it in half to pull the bastard out
5) Finally seated the card, which goes over my x-fi. Boot up: x-fi not recognized
6) Spend another hour getting the x-fi to recognize, finally it recognizes.

That's about it so far lmao.

Edit: ran a test in dirt 2. Before load temp was about 88c with fan on auto
Now load temp is 55c with the 140mm thermalright fan. The fan is SUPER quiet even at full 12v it's only 900 RPM, I can't hear it over my cpu fans. Very pleased.
Click to expand...

Damn dude. That's hardcore work. I had a much easier time with my "test bench" case of a PC (not as clean looking as your assembled setup of course). Yeah, you need a really good set of precision screw drivers to avoid stripping heads on the GTX480.

Best thing about the Spitfire other than the massive decrease in temps and huge increase in clocks is the ----silence----. Absolutely whisper quiet with my 1000rpm fan. And it stays that way no matter how hard you slam the GTX480.
 
How much clearance is below Spitfire ?

Can you mount full sized card below it ?
 
alxnet2003 said:
Damn dude. That's hardcore work. I had a much easier time with my "test bench" case of a PC (not as clean looking as your assembled setup of course). Yeah, you need a really good set of precision screw drivers to avoid stripping heads on the GTX480.

Best thing about the Spitfire other than the massive decrease in temps and huge increase in clocks is the ----silence----. Absolutely whisper quiet with my 1000rpm fan. And it stays that way no matter how hard you slam the GTX480.
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Yea absolutely. I hate loud GPUS and the hissing noises, ruins my gaming experience. However now it's all quiet just like my accelero hd4870x2 was.

Michaelius said:
How much clearance is below Spitfire ?

Can you mount full sized card below it ?
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Yea there's enough clearance. I have an x-fi full size installed behind mine.
 
OP or anyone else with this cooler installed, can you guys take some pics of your rig and post them?
 
Last post was end of June.
Any new cooling options emerge since then?

I'm considering the spitfire, but I don't think it's going to fit in my CM HAF 932 very well, since I'll have to point it down and there is a 250mm intake fan on the door there.

Pics:

hXSRI.jpg


CVtBH.jpg
 
SGTerminus said:
Last post was end of June.
Any new cooling options emerge since then?

I'm considering the spitfire, but I don't think it's going to fit in my CM HAF 932 very well, since I'll have to point it down and there is a 250mm intake fan on the door there.

Pics:



Click to expand...

It won't fit. Not with the PSU there at least. I tried mounting it facing down in a CM832 and there wasn't enough clearance. I ended up buying a H50 to replace the TRUE120 I had and mounted the spitfire up.
 
Got mine in today and just finished with the install. Bad news for me is that it would not install unless i moved the H50 radiator outside of the case because it was hitting it, so now it is on top of the case and it looks really ugly.Maybe a new case would be better.

As for temps i idle at 40c but when i ran furmark for a few minutes it shot up to 80c before i stopped it just because i don't have a fan for the heatsink on the vrm's and i can feel it beginning to get hot. Oh and i got a 120mm fan on the Spitfire so tomorrow i'll let it run a bit longer on furmark and see how this handles it.

I'll try and get pics up when i can but it's looking pretty ghetto.
 
Vega said:
On the CoolIT Omni, the load GPU temp's went from 93 stock down to 81. Not exactly what I would call a huge change. Granted I am sure the noise is lower. Not to mention $180 for each card you have in SLI.
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True. But at least you CAN do SLI with the Omni. :)
There's no phsyical way to do that with the Spitfire's dimensions.
It's tough enough just getting ONE of those things to fit.
 
Kainzo said:
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10012394&prodlist=froogle

Does this look legit? $30 for this isn't that bad at all.

Either way, I'm looking for some after market cooling for the gpu, is there currently a place that sells these in stock?
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"Special Features:
* 80mm of fin area, specially designed for the VRM of 5870/5850 VGA cards,effectively lowers the high temperature and prolongs the VGA life, providesgreater range of over-clocking performance ."

Sounds like it only cools the vrms, not the gpu itself.
 
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