Will an aftermarket cooler be a good idea for an 8800GT?

[techgamer]

Just got an EVGA KO 8800gt from the egg. Do you think it would be a good idea to get an aftermarket gpu cooler/fan?

thanks

 

[SickBeast]

So you want to void your warranty, risk destroying your card, give yourself at least an hour of labour to do, and spend probably $30 for maybe 10% more performance?

BAD IDEA.

Just spend $30 more on your graphics card if you want something faster. The cards overclock to 700mhz on the stock cooler I hear. I can't see aftermarket stuff being worth it.

 

[jonmcc33]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
So you want to void your warranty, risk destroying your card, give yourself at least an hour of labour to do, and spend probably $30 for maybe 10% more performance?

BAD IDEA.

Just spend $30 more on your graphics card if you want something faster. The cards overclock to 700mhz on the stock cooler I hear. I can't see aftermarket stuff being worth it.

Who said he wants something faster? Last time I checked the 8800GTX was the only thing faster and it's more than $30 difference.

I run my X1900XT at stock and replaced the stock cooler because it was too loud and also because I wanted better cooling. Does that make sense to you?

The stock cooler on the 8800GT lets the GPU get to 90C under load. Why wouldn't anyone want it running cooler?

 

[MarcVenice]

Erm, EVGA does NOT void your warranty if you install an aftermarket cooler. Unless you ofcourse damage the pcb or whatever, but if you've got a steady hand that shouldn't happen either. Depending on the cooler, it might be worth it. I think someone is going to try it on the cases & cooling forum. Personaly, I'd wait for results from others. Then you can decide wether it'll be worth it or not.

 

[Laminator]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
So you want to void your warranty, risk destroying your card, give yourself at least an hour of labour to do, and spend probably $30 for maybe 10% more performance?

BAD IDEA.

Just spend $30 more on your graphics card if you want something faster. The cards overclock to 700mhz on the stock cooler I hear. I can't see aftermarket stuff being worth it.

You mean void eVGA's warranty that covers both overclocking and aftermarket coolers? For a performance boost that can mean the difference between playability and unplayability in Crysis? As well as keeping your card cool, thus prolonging its life and the life of the other components in your case?

 

[P229SAS]

Where might one find a good aftermarket cooler for the GT?

 

[jonmcc33]

The Zalman VF1000 or Thermalright HR-03 Plus should work fine on it.

http://www.heatsinkfactory.com...coolers-p-1-c-322.html

 

[potato28]

Just keep the stock cooler, nVidia seems to have done a good job with the cooler design.

 

[1Dark1Sharigan1]

Well he may not necessarily want an aftermarket cooler just for overclocking. Maybe he wants to know if the card is loud with the default cooler or not. It could be a heat/noise consideration as well as an overclocking consideration.

 

[MrUniq]

Most reasons people by aftermarket is to quiet their cards...zalman is a popular choice.

 

[JBT]

$55 plus shipping for a heat sink fan? hell no... if you are willing to get that just wait till december when the next GTS's are released...

 

[child of wonder]

An aftermarket cooler was essential for my X1900XT. That beast was LOUD.

 

[JBT]

Well the 8800GT's are suppose to be wisper quiet except on boot that I have heard.

 

[techgamer]

Yeah my main reason for asking was in case the card gets too hot because i bought a pre-OC'd version the KO

 

[Fulcrum]

FYI-

I haven't really stressed it yet, but so far my EVGA 8800GT KO is noticeably quieter than the factory overlooked EVGA 7900GT (I forget the exact model right now, but I think it was a KO in 7900GT form-it had a slightly different fan from the standard reference design that was supposed to be just a little quieter if I recall correctly) it replaced. Immediately on system power up it does go full blast and make quite a bit of noise for about 3 to 4 seconds though.

Idle temp right now is 64C according to NV?s Monitor utility. I haven?t checked load temps yet but will hopefully do so late tomorrow.

 

[taltamir]

eVGA has 4 version...
stock 600mhz
superclocked 650
KO 675
Super super clocked 700...

Shader units etc were also overclocked similarly...
So if you wanted you should have gotten the SSD card instead for 10 more bucks...

A regular aftermarket cooler is probably gonna be worse then the regular cooler since it already covers everything nicely.
If you want to really overclock the sucker then get watercooling of phase change... then its worth to put aftermarket cooler on GPU

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: JBT
Well the 8800GT's are suppose to be wisper quiet except on boot that I have heard.

Yep, that's been my experience so far. GT fan on boot is loud. Like Delta screamer loud lol. GTS was more like a gush of air. I'm not a big fan of spending $30-50 on an after-market cooler to eek out a bit performance out of a card. Better to put that money into a beefier GPU with more transistors imo.

But the GTS/GTX stock coolers are noticeably better than the stock GT coolers. My GTS cooler is probably 3x thicker at least and exhausts air out the back. The GT cooler is only as thick as the mounting bracket (true single-slot). The fan on the GT is smaller, thinner and needs more RPM to push (probably) less air.

So far my GT hasn't gone over 69F under load at 700/1000 with fan settings at Auto. I'll definitely change things around a bit once RT 2.06 is released as I want to push the shader core and set the fan to fixed. My thoughts are though that the GT could definitely be pushed further with better cooling, but I think this is where NV and their board partners are saving a good chunk of money by cutting down on the cost of the very nice GTS/GTX coolers. If a GT were released with the dual-slot cooler I'm confident you'd get significantly higher clock speeds, but you'd end up paying for it with the beefier cooler.

 

[Lecho]

I just got the MSI NX8800GT and it sounds like a jet on boot. I looked into 3rd party cooling as well because of the noise and heat. I do like the low profile look of the stock cooler however. The funny thing about the Zalman VF1000 is that you have to use RHS88 RAM Heatsinks with it, but on Zalman's site it says: "This product is a RAM Heatsink for NVIDIA Geforce 8800 Series(except NVIDIA Geforce 8800 GT)."

Anybody have any luck with the Zalman cooler? I am thinking about getting the Thermalright HR-03 Plus which is designed for the 8800 GT and trying that.

 

[Raider1284]

the zalman vf1000 absolutely works, the actual cooler at least, i dunno about the ramsinks. Swetan is using it on his and he is getting 780/1000 overclocks while in the low 50C temps at load.

I'm using the duOrb myself: http://www.thermaltake.com/pro.../CL-G0102/cl-g0102.asp

It keeps my 8800gt at 56C load at 750/1825/950 speeds. The DuOrb isn't the quietest thing in the world though, I used a converter so that i could plug it into my motherboard. Using speedfan I reduced the noise considerably and still cools extremely well, the temps above are on the "quiet" setting.

The zalman vf900 also works, it is much quieter then the duOrb but performs 3-6C worse I believe.

I havent seen anyone post temps using the HR3 cooler yet.

 

[Capt Caveman]

Originally posted by: techgamer
Yeah my main reason for asking was in case the card gets too hot because i bought a pre-OC'd version the KO

I would either wait til EVGA releases a bios update for your KO(this week or next) which will increase your fan speed. Or download rivatuner and increase your fan speed yourself.

I'm perfectly happy with the stock heatsink on my EVGA 8800GT SSC clocked at 700/1000. I have the fan running at 65% and only get 45c at idle and 68c at load.