Arctic Cooling Silencer 4 vs TT Giant III???

[Alaxan]

I am trying to research into this right now and have not found much for an article anywhere on this. Opinions? Which actually cools better of the two?

Noise is not too much of a factor for me. I simply would like the better performing cooling solution for my ATI X800 Pro (clocked to X800 XT PE)

 

[lrmat]

i just ordered the arctic cooling 4 for my x800 pro. i've read reviews for this unit (do a google search). and it sounded good enough for me with tha ancillery benefit of also cooling the rest of the case (cause it's blowing the hot air out of the case).

 

[Alaxan]

I have a 120mm fan doing that sucking already, so that is not a major issue. I was more concerned over the ram being kept cool. I know the GiantIII is big and ugly, but it has 8 individual ram blocks which is somewhat attractive.

 

[lrmat]

i have the same case you do. my temps are 32c for cpu and mobo at idel and 52c for cpu 41c mobo at load. i just bought the zalman cnps7700 cpu cooler and this arctic fan for my x800pro. one of the selling points to me is that this cooler is specific to our card, not a one size fits all cooler. and yeah the 120m fan is drawing air out of the case but this cooler is doing the same but it's doing it directly over the gpu.

 

[Alaxan]

True true. and good points. I am having my shop here order a Silencer 4 for me. I will post results on the cooling and possibly even purchase a GiantIII just for comparison.

Seems my temps are a bit higher. My system temp at idle is 20C CPU is at 46C. I do have it overclocked a bit right now. While I am running games it peaks off around 58C CPU and 27-28C System. This on a Vcore of 1.75 and 13x multiplier @ 205MHz.

The big thing is I clocked my GPU up to the XT PE and I noticed it hitting nearly 80C. I clocked it WAY down and am waiting to get better cooling for it. I just hope I make the right call cause I want to push it to the edge if I can.

 

[akira34]

I was going to mention that the Arctic Cooling unit has it's copper block machined to mate up with the memory on your video card. I've not used that specific cooler, but I did get the one for the 6800GT card and installed it on mine. Just make sure you follow the instructions that come with the cooler, and use the thermal paste that comes with it, and you'll be fine... It will do your system good having it vent the hot air from the GPU out the back of your case. I noticed at 10C+ drop in temps on my 6800 when I installed the cooler... That's the core temp via the control panel...

 

[Alaxan]

Excellent news! Now if only I can actually get ahold of my neighbor that works at the shop to pick me one up. (No I am not lazy, but he gets me discounts and has to special order it for me.

(hint off subject....but NICE monitor Akira... identical to mine. I love it, plan on getting a second one in January)

 

[Tiamat]

OP: Check out the Zalman ZM80D-HP. I just bought one from newegg. It has ramsinks, and if your 120mm exhaust is good enough, you dont need a fan on it. If its not, you can use a spare fan set on superlow and the zalman will work nicely. I only say this outta what ive read on the forums, but Ill definately know after the newyear. (Its a christmas present for myself )

 

[Alaxan]

Cool deal! Let me know how it turns out. Right now I am dealing with another ISSUE on this machine. I think I am going to cry now.


Anyways... do let me know how it turns out and I will maybe gather the data from you and others and see about making a new thread for cooling the X800 cards

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I have the Silencer built for GeForce4 AGP's on a rather "warm" system with a ti4600 GF4 AGP. I have the Zalman ZM80D-HP (blue) on an nVidia FX5950 Ultra in my latest build. Before the Silencer in the first machine, I had a Zalman ZM80B. I replaced it with the Silencer because the Zalman was going to get in the way of my new heatpipe cooler replacing a more conventional copper HSF assembly.

I had been informed by reliable sources that the Silencer was only short a degree or two centigrade from the Zalman's performance. I was willing to live with that.

The Zalman on the Ti4600 (replaced by the Silencer) -- reduced my AGP GPU temperature from the mid-120's fahrenheit to about 104 to 108F depending on room temperature.

That's why I picked the ZM80D-HP to cool my FX 5950 Ultra. And I was very wise to follow that logic. My GPU temp as measured by its own internal sensor and the nVidia driver software ("Display"->"Properties"->"Advanced"->"nVidia FX5950"->"Temperature") -- never goes above 38 or 39C -- unless the room temp is climbing above 75F.

Even so -- the Silencer is "good". I can tell you that, too.

 

[lrmat]

i just received my silencer as well as thermaltake's ddr ram heat spreaders. installation was very simple and straight forward. i can feel warm air being disapated out the vents from the silencer. i guess i have to wait a week for the arctic silver 5 to settle in. the silencer gives the hefty x800 even more heft. very nice.

 

[MDE]

You guys do realize that GDDR3 runs cool enough that it doesn't need any extra cooling, right? There's a reason ATI ships X800 XT PEs without any cooling on the memory other than the air coming off the heatsink.

 

[lrmat]

i didn't but i've overclocked my pro to xt near specs.

 

[akira34]

Originally posted by: MDE
You guys do realize that GDDR3 runs cool enough that it doesn't need any extra cooling, right? There's a reason ATI ships X800 XT PEs without any cooling on the memory other than the air coming off the heatsink.

That may be true, but pulling even that little heat off the board and venting it out of the case will help. It's not necessary to add extra heatsinks to the memory but if the cooler already covers the chips why not let it do the work for you? Personally, I wouldn't add even more heatsinks to the card, since the AC unit is designed to provide top notch cooling on the card. I really like being able to vent the hot air coming off the GPU heatsink to the outside of the case. Besides, with it being winter having a little extra heat under the desk isn't a bad thing...

 

[Alaxan]

Originally posted by: akira34

Originally posted by: MDE
You guys do realize that GDDR3 runs cool enough that it doesn't need any extra cooling, right? There's a reason ATI ships X800 XT PEs without any cooling on the memory other than the air coming off the heatsink.

That may be true, but pulling even that little heat off the board and venting it out of the case will help. It's not necessary to add extra heatsinks to the memory but if the cooler already covers the chips why not let it do the work for you? Personally, I wouldn't add even more heatsinks to the card, since the AC unit is designed to provide top notch cooling on the card. I really like being able to vent the hot air coming off the GPU heatsink to the outside of the case. Besides, with it being winter having a little extra heat under the desk isn't a bad thing...

I am aware of how ATI ships them, and I am also aware of the temps my video card was reading with ATITool after I clocked it up to an XT PE. Nearly 80degrees and the system would shut down or reboot. While this problem MAY have been more related to my dead PSU, I have done some research and MSI actually sells their ATI cards with the fan and heatsink setup covering the ram. The choice to go with an additional cooler on the system was made after watching temps skyrocket and a system become unstable due to the temp. (I beleive that and am stickin by it..lol)

Moral of the story, sometimes a little extra cooling IS required and in this case, I wanted to explore all options. From additional RAM sinks to the more simplistic Silencer4.

 

[Alaxan]

*Update* I juse purchased an ATI Silencer 4. The system turned out to be dead due to a faulty harddrive causing a short in the PSU and in turn frying the motherboard. MSI is replacing the motherboard and newegg is replacing the harddrive. All should be in within a few days and I will post temps and such once the ATI silencer is up and running.

 

[aurellie1]

Good choice! TT Giant3 is very annoying becouse it of it's 9000rpm radial fan that pushes only minor amounts of air...however, giant3 has very good heatsink, if you replace stock fans with an silent 80mm fan whole thing can turn much better solution than zalman coolers.

 

[Alaxan]

Originally posted by: aurellie1
Good choice! TT Giant3 is very annoying becouse it of it's 9000rpm radial fan that pushes only minor amounts of air...however, giant3 has very good heatsink, if you replace stock fans with an silent 80mm fan whole thing can turn much better solution than zalman coolers.

Thanks! I am really hoping it helps a lot. I had so many problems with this computer, Have been through three motherboards, two power supplies and two hard drives. Finally figured out the problem to be based in the hard drive shorting out. What a pain in the arse! I really hope the ATI Silencer 4 helps with this cooling on the card. I really want to push it all the way to XT PE speeds and maybe a bit beyond if I can manage it.

 

[Alaxan]

I got the silencer 4 in today... WOW! I am impressed. The images from newegg and other sites I had tried to research this on were not nearly enough to show what this thing is. Covers all of the ramsinks and is an amazing piece of equipment. Have not been able to test it out yet, but will be working on that over the next few days once my new motherboard gets in.