Radeon 9500 Pro and silence

[amoun]

I just bought a Thermaltake Silent Boost and a Zalman ZM80D-HP VGA heatsink for my PC.

My question is regargind the Zalman, is it adequate to passivly cool my Saphire 9500 PRO??

My case and CPU (Ahlon XP 2500+ OC to 3200+) temps are no more than 2C above what they were with my Vantec Aeroflow and stock heatsink on my card. At idle Case ia 38C and CPU 47C. On load Case is 42C and CPU is 54C.

I tried looking on the net for reviews of the Zalman, all the test were done using newer cards than mine. Such as the 9700 PRO, 9800 PRO, 9800 XT, X800 PRO and X800 XT. The reviews on the 9000 series show that the zalman heatsink used alone increased temps by less than 5C. Which seams acceptable to me, right??

Obvisouly with the X series the heatsink did not suffice, but I'm not concerned since my card is no where near that fast and I do not plan to overclock my video card at all.

The other concern I had was regarding the heatpipes. I noticed that on both heatpipes, one ending was pointy while the other end was a bit flatened. Is there a purpose for this? Does it change the efficiancy of the heatpipes?
http://www.rojakpot.com/review...zm80d/heatpipe_big.jpg
http://pcsynapse.com/reviews/zm80d/zm12.jpg

So should I add a fan to my zalman heatsink and do the ends of the heatpipes matter?
Also, any idea how I could my GPU temps?

Thanks guys and gals for any info you could provide Smile.

 

[machineman]

If it isn't enough, adding a fan dropped down to 5V would help substantially, and many fans are close to silent at that voltage. I was considering getting a Zalman system for my Leadtek 4200, (which has a large heatsink as standard) but changing the fan voltage to 5v was enough by itself, it is practically silent now, and have had no problems for the last year.

 

[amoun]

My question is exactly that... I don't know if it's enough and I have no idea how to find out...

It was suggested to me that I run some benchmarking tools and look for artifacts. I have no porblem with that other than the fact I was told that as soon as artifacts appear on your screen it means that your video card has been damaged. That true??

I thought of buying a digital thermal sensor... but I want to avoid that as it requires me spending money and isn't very simple to implement.

 

[ronnn]

My zalman heat pipe also has one pointy and one flat end. Works great with a 9700pro. I think the 9500pro is basically the same gpu as the 9700 so can't see why it wouldn't work. Still never a bad idea to make sure your case has good air flow and if needed a quiet fan blowing on the heatpipe.

 

[ed21x]

Originally posted by: amoun
My question is exactly that... I don't know if it's enough and I have no idea how to find out...

It was suggested to me that I run some benchmarking tools and look for artifacts. I have no porblem with that other than the fact I was told that as soon as artifacts appear on your screen it means that your video card has been damaged. That true??

I thought of buying a digital thermal sensor... but I want to avoid that as it requires me spending money and isn't very simple to implement.

oh definitely not. artifacts only show overheating, but not damage.

 

[amoun]

thx all this info is really helping, if anyone has more please do tell.