Silence

martinburke

Any recommendation for a silent GFX card .? Preferably on par with a GTX 680.
I have a 7870xt which is quite powerful but noisy as hell . Even with good cooling .

Gumbi

martinburke wrote: »

Any recommendation for a silent GFX card .? Preferably on par with a GTX 680.
I have a 7870xt which is quite powerful but noisy as hell . Even with good cooling .

What model is it? I'm guessing its the Powercolor or the VT model?

martinburke

Gumbi wrote: »

What model is it? I'm guessing its the Powercolor or the VT model?

It's actually the Club 3D model .

I use MSI after burner to reduce the fan speed just a little, makes a big difference .The case has good airflow so the card isn't in danger of melting .

I'd still like something that it powerful and silent , off the shelf . Ya digg.

Gumbi

martinburke wrote: »

It's actually the Club 3D model .

I use MSI after burner to reduce the fan speed just a little, makes a big difference .The case has good airflow so the card isn't in danger of melting .

I'd still like something that it powerful and silent , off the shelf . Ya digg.

I thought the Club3D model had a decent cooler. What are your max temps when gaming?

af_thefragile

Asus Direct CUii cards are really silent as they have monster radiators which don't need fast loud fans to keep cool. Also great cards for easy overclocking. I run my GTX570 at 782MHz when playing games which is a whole 50MHz more than the base clock and it never goes above 64C temp.

If you wanna go quieter than that then you'll be looking at custom watercooling solutions.

martinburke

Gumbi wrote: »

I thought the Club3D model had a decent cooler. What are your max temps when gaming?

When i slow the fan down i hit around 76c on the gpu

GPU Running at:
975 clock
1500 memory

Gumbi

martinburke wrote: »

When i slow the fan down i hit around 76c on the gpu

GPU Running at:
975 clock
1500 memory

Ahh. You don't have any thermal headroom with which to play around, really. Are you sure it's the graphics card cooler that's ramping up?

martinburke

Gumbi wrote: »

Ahh. You don't have any thermal headroom with which to play around, really. Are you sure it's the graphics card cooler that's ramping up?

Yea i replaced all the fans with silent Noctua ones.

only thing left is gpu

Gumbi

martinburke wrote: »

Yea i replaced all the fans with silent Noctua ones.

only thing left is gpu

Ouch that must have hurt the bank a bit. Nothing you can do about it unless you spend 48 quid plus shipping on an Accelero Xtreme 7970 (it fits 7950s AFAIK).

I am ordering one in the next week or so if that would cut out the shipping for you...

martinburke

Gumbi wrote: »

Ouch that must have hurt the bank a bit. Nothing you can do about it unless you spend 48 quid plus shipping on an Accelero Xtreme 7970 (it fits 7950s AFAIK).

I am ordering one in the next week or so if that would cut out the shipping for you...

Hmmmm. Interesting . I am gonna google the **** out this when I get a chance , just to see if it will install on the 7870xt , I can see an issue since the 7870xt is basically a 7930.

Gumbi

martinburke wrote: »

Hmmmm. Interesting . I am gonna google the **** out this when I get a chance , just to see if it will install on the 7870xt , I can see an issue since the 7870xt is basically a 7930.

http://www.hardwareversand.de/VGA+Cooler/60651/ARCTIC+COOLING+Accelero+Xtreme+7970+7950.article

martinburke

still reading lol.

any ideas on a MAX safe temp for the 7870xt on a stock cooler?

Gumbi

martinburke wrote: »

still reading lol.

any ideas on a MAX safe temp for the 7870xt on a stock cooler?

VRMs shouldn't exceed 90 degrees (download GPUZ and you can see VRM temps), core, I think the same, but my own card will throttle before that, so I would say try to keep it below 80.

The Accelero Xtreme should fit a 7870XT, it fits 7870s, 7950s, and 7970s. But it's a bit overkill for a 7870XT IMO. Maybe try undervolting your card to reduce temps? Do you have cool air blowing in from a side fan? That can help a nice bit.

martinburke

Gumbi wrote: »

VRMs shouldn't exceed 90 degrees (download GPUZ and you can see VRM temps), core, I think the same, but my own card will throttle before that, so I would say try to keep it below 80.

The Accelero Xtreme should fit a 7870XT, it fits 7870s, 7950s, and 7970s. But it's a bit overkill for a 7870XT IMO. Maybe try undervolting your card to reduce temps? Do you have cool air blowing in from a side fan? That can help a nice bit.

Might try a voltage change .
Have a 120 noctua on the side too

Gumbi

I have a proposition that might interest you I am crunching numbers here, and I only end up 100 quid out of pocket if I go the air cooling route plus all my other components. If I got the water cooling route, I'll end op about 250 quid out of pocket in total. The water cooling is still enticing, but it's a lot of work. And expensive. What I'm considering is going the air route, and if it doesn't curb the VRM temps on my 7950 (I have a model whereby the VRMs are particularly vicious at high voltages/clock speeds) enough for me, I can sell you the Accelero for 40 - 45 quid (48 new on HWVS), and it should have no problem at all cooling a 7870XT (in fact it would allow you monstrous overclocks I expect).

Let me know what you think of this. Try to confirm as well that this cooler fits the XT, I'm fairly sure it does simply because it supports the 7970, 7950, as well as the 7870.