Is a VGA Cooler Necessary?

[jac0b84]

Just trying to reduce ambient temp in my case.

 

[Jotho]

If you're specifically interested in lowering the case temp, you could look into an Arctic Cooling NV Silencer which exhausts heat generated by the GPU out the back of the case.

 

[stevty2889]

If you didn't use a cooler on your 6800GT..you might as well kiss it goodbye..but as Jotho said, an Artic Cooler might help, if there is one that fits your card

 

[wisdomtooth]

Originally posted by: jac0b84
Just trying to reduce ambient temp in my case.

If you mean the Arctic Silencer with the direct heat exhaust system, yes it might help.

I think you will see a bigger effect if you get a better PSU. That Broadway PSU if I remember correctly uses a dinky 80mm fan. You might want to give the Seasonic S12-500 a try, which has a 120mm fan, vents MUCH better and helps in cooling the system. And it just happens to be the quietest fan-cooled PSU available.

 

[jac0b84]

Theres a heatsink and fan that came with the card. It Keeps the card at reasonable temps even at load. (80 C max). Or at least i thought that was reasonable.

 

[cobain]

I'd personally go for the Zalman GPU cooler. Theres quite a bit of info in this thread.

 

[Navid]

Originally posted by: cobain
I'd personally go for the Zalman GPU cooler. Theres quite a bit of info in this thread.

The only VGA cooler than can contribute to reducing the case temperature is the Silencer. The Zalman can only cool the GPU and the RAM but not the case.

 

[cobain]

Navid read the thread, the Zalman actually gives lower case temps than the NV5.

 

[wisdomtooth]

Several things I find questionable with the results posted by that gentleman on the thread, the chief being:

He ran his machine when room temp is 37C. That's 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

He then claims that the ambient case temp with the Zalman on is 39C-- Just 2 degrees Celsius above ambient room temp?? In an enclosed computer with a hot CPU and vid card??? Sounds kind of fishy to me.

The jury is still out on whether one is significantly better than the other (and I'm withholding judgment until I see a more rigorous test), but I wouldn't take that thread as gospel.

 

[Navid]

Originally posted by: cobain
Navid read the thread, the Zalman actually gives lower case temps than the NV5.

I had a look. I did not read the whole thread!
I did see references to the ambient temperature, which I think is the temperature of the VGA card itself that is reported as Ambient by RivaTuner. I don't know why RivaTuner does that. And I can see that this can be confused with the case temperature.
Is that what you are talking about?
Or, does anyone report case air temperature comparisons in that thread?
If they do, can you tell me which page it is on?

If adding a fan inside the case can have an impact on the reported case temperature, it has to be because the fan is near the case temperature sensor. I don't see how adding a fan inside a case can cool the case down.
You can put a fan in a room to blow air into your face. You will feel cooler. But, the whole room is not cooled by the fan. To cool a room by a fan, you need to use the fan to transfer air from/to the room.