swifty mcw50 waterblock on a 9800 XT?

[batboy]

I have a 9700 Pro and was thinking about upgrading to a 9800 XT for the holidays. Will my Swiftech MCW50 waterblock work on the new vid card? Anyone have a link to a review where they removed the GPU heatsink so I can see how the cooler is mounted? If it's the standard diagonal mounting holes like what's on the 9700 Pro, then all is well. Thanks in advance.

[shiyan]

edit: BINGO! http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/ati/9800xt_r360/images/board1.jpg
http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/ati/9800xt_r360/images/board3.jpg
from this page: http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/ati/9800xt_r360/index.php?p=4

picture of what the cooler looks like underneath: http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/ati/9800xt_r360/images/cooling4.jpg

this is a huge one: http://www.gamepc.com/images/labs/rev-9800xt-backLG.jpg

[pkrew]

It has the same diagonal mounting holes as the 9800np/pro/9600 series. It also has 2 additional hole for the back heat spreader, which shouldn't make a difference for you.

[batboy]

Thanks Shiyan and Pkrew! Looks like once you take the fancy heatsink and cooling apparatus off, it's a regular 9800 card (and very similar to my 9700 Pro too). Anyway, there should be no problem installing my waterblock to a 9800 XT. Now I just have to save up a few bucks for the new vid card.

[Black_Paladin]

Originally posted by batboy
Thanks Shiyan and Pkrew! Looks like once you take the fancy heatsink and cooling apparatus off, it's a regular 9800 card (and very similar to my 9700 Pro too). Anyway, there should be no problem installing my waterblock to a 9800 XT. Now I just have to save up a few bucks for the new vid card.

Do you really think it's worth upgrading from a 9700 pro WITH a MCW50 on it??

[batboy]

Is it worth it? Depends on your point of view. If you have family obligations and/or if you are on a tight budget then of course it's not worth it. The relatively small amount of performance gain in this upgrade compared to the high cost of the 9800 XT is hard to justify if you have to go hungry. But, I have money to burn and my house is paid off, so if I want the best vid card available for bragging rights, then why not?

[grunjee]

I'm looking at an XT myself and was wondering the same thing about the MCW50.

I guess if you do decide to H2O cool it, you'll want to stick ramsinks on the memory. Or could you get by without them? My concern would be, if I epoxied ramsinks on the thing, it would make it harder to sell come time for my next upgrade....

[shiyan]

You should use epoxy mixed with regular thermal paste in a 1:1 ratio (roughly anyway) to fix your ramsinks.

this way you can remove the ramsinks easily if you want to take them off, say when you need to sell them. then just use some alcohol to clean it up.

just remember to protect the area around the RAM with some sticky tape, so that any of the mixture that oozes out does not get onto anything around the RAM.

[grunjee]

Originally posted by shiyan
You should use epoxy mixed with regular thermal paste in a 1:1 ratio (roughly anyway) to fix your ramsinks.

this way you can remove the ramsinks easily if you want to take them off, say when you need to sell them. then just use some alcohol to clean it up.

just remember to protect the area around the RAM with some sticky tape, so that any of the mixture that oozes out does not get onto anything around the RAM.

Thanks for your input... anyone else have comments on this idea?

[batboy]

I always epoxy RAM sinks on permanently. My buddies that buy my cast offs get them cheap and seem to like having them pre-modded. I've heard about others mixing thermal paste and epoxy and that apparently works. I've never tried it myself.

I already have a new set of TweakMonster RAM sinks for my new card (actually I bought four packs last time I ordered). Here are a couple pics of my current 9700 Pro. The 9800 XT will look almost the same except the back has a large heat spreader plate (see the links that Shiyan provided).

http://mywebpage.netscape.com/batboybain/9700+pro+mods4.jpg

http://mywebpage.netscape.com/batboybain/9700+pro+mods3.jpg

[Romebaby]

Originally posted by grunjee


Thanks for your input... anyone else have comments on this idea?

Yes, tone down the mixture so you can get them back off. You can experiment with the ratio on an old vid card or modem. You'll find that the ram doesn't get nearly as hot with a waterblock on the gpu though.

[Ray@VSK]

Got the same thing but a 9800 pro, mounts very nicely just be sure when u get your 9800 u get samsung ram & not to tighten the mcw50 screws to tight as it will warp your board ;)

www.crazypc.com has all this including ramsinks as seen in my picture.

http://www.vskclan.com/images/9800.jpg

[Irondog]

Hi to all,
I'm going to buy a Swiftech MCW50 for my 9700 but I've a problem with my ram-heatsinks: the are 15mm height and I don't know if they are small enought to let the tubing pass them (sorry for the bad english...). Can amybody post the height of the tubing from the pcb??? thanks :p

[krag]

yeah Batboy! Hook it up....it'll take the MCW50 easy. I have my 9800 XT cooled with a MCW50-T but I am not too happy with the temps. My oc is 500/400 with Tweakmonster & AS5 on the mem. My idle temp is 21c and my load is 31-32c not to impressed with the 80w TEC so I am gonna upgrade my TEC to a 172w and my pump from a MCX300 to the new MCX600 but I will be keeping my BIX rad.

My 9800 XT is the only cooling head on my loop.

As it stands now:
MCW50-T (stock 80w TEC) running off my Antec 550w
MCX300 pump
BIX rad
1 120mm Panaflo 85cfm quite fan

New setup:
MCW50-T W/172w TEC run off S-240-24 Mean Well
MCX600 pump
BIX rad
2 120mm Panaflo 85cfm in push pull


I am hoping to get idle temp around 0c-5c and load around 10c. I may have to swap out my rad to a chevet heatercore since everyone says they are the best but i am not sure that it will fit.

[batboy]

Hey Irondog, I measured my RAM sinks and they are 10mm tall, but 15mm tall sinks should be fine with a couple mm or so to spare. Don't think you'd want anything taller though. It's about 18mm from the PCB to the hoses.

Thanks Kraig, it's good to hear from someone I know that it's no problem to install that Swifty MCW50 water block. Thanks. Hey, did you leave the back heat spreader plate on yours?

Well, I got my new BBA 9800 XT yesterday. I installed it in my air cooled 2.8C rig for now (see siggy). I wanted to use the Cat 3.7 drivers so I could directly compare it to my 9700 Pro, but it wouldn't load the 3.7's. Keep getting an .inf error message. So, I installed the Cat 3.9 drivers instead. Time to see how much it'll O/C. It'll be interesting to see how much more I can get out of it water cooled once I move it to the other system. The stock cooling on this baby looks very impressive. I'll keep you posted.

[batboy]

Dang it! Rage3D does not support the 9800 XT. What program can I use to overclock it?

[Irondog]

Originally posted by batboy
Hey Irondog, I measured my RAM sinks and they are 10mm tall, but 15mm tall sinks should be fine with a couple mm or so to spare. Don't think you'd want anything taller though. It's about 18mm from the PCB to the hoses.

Thanks Kraig, it's good to hear from someone I know that it's no problem to install that Swifty MCW50 water block. Thanks. Hey, did you leave the back heat spreader plate on yours?

Well, I got my new BBA 9800 XT yesterday. I installed it in my air cooled 2.8C rig for now (see siggy). I wanted to use the Cat 3.7 drivers so I could directly compare it to my 9700 Pro, but it wouldn't load the 3.7's. Keep getting an .inf error message. So, I installed the Cat 3.9 drivers instead. Time to see how much it'll O/C. It'll be interesting to see how much more I can get out of it water cooled once I move it to the other system. The stock cooling on this baby looks very impressive. I'll keep you posted.
Thanks very mych for your support!!! I'll get one of those wb in order to maximize my 9500@9700!!!
To oveclock your radeon, try to use Rivatuner (http://www.guru3d.com/rivatuner), it should work with EVERY Radeon.... ;)

[batboy]

I read an article about the 9800 XT at Guru3D where they used Rivatuner. So, I downloaded the most up to date version which claimed to support the 9800 XT. But, it don't support the Cat 3.9 drivers yet. Having trouble finding a program that will O/C this 9800 XT with the Cat 3.9 drivers.

[Irondog]

I've collaborated with the creator of rivatuner (you can see my nick on the credits ;) ) and I know that the overclocked feature is independent from the catalysts version you install, it uses a module that changes the frequencies DIRECTLY (it's called low-level overclocking) so you should have no problem IF rivatuner recognizes your hardware correctly...

[Irondog]

You have to click on the button right near "Customize..." :p

[batboy]

Thanks for the info. I gave up on Rivatuner, it wouldn't recognize the Cat 3.9 drivers. It just plain didn't work for me. Maybe I didn't know what I was doing. Anyway, I have now downloaded PowerStrip and that seems to be working fine.

Ok, now that I overclocked this new 9800 XT, I'm sort of a little disappointed. Most reviews I've read claimed to get 450 core and 390 memory speed (default is 412/365). On my overclocked 2.8C @ 3.5 gig system with all the eye candy vid card settings turned way up (high quality) I only got 432 core and 385 memory O/C speed.

I'm very picky about not having any artifacts or tearing. This turned out to be a 20 MHz O/C for both core and memory. Not bad I guess, but I was expecting a little more. I supposed if I set the CPU speed back to default and used the vid card default settings, it would probably do better. I might try that later when I have more time.

[krag]

Dang it! That stinkin' sucks batboy. Are you using the MCW50 on it? Or is it the stock hsf? No...I am not using the stock back plate. I am using tweakmonster ram sinks and I have sinked most of the external IC chips as well with "Microcool" black ram sinks. I have the whole "grouping" of IC chips covered with ram sinks on the GPU side of the card and I have gotten my memory up to 412mhz with no tearing...I think I can go further but I am going to install a newer 172mm Rotron to replace my older one. The new one pushes 285cfm @24v...so on a 12v rehobus I should be able to get a max of 142.5cfm. I think a large part of my Vid card oc is due to the air flow & ram sinks.

Batboy if I were you I would put some small heat sinks on as many exposed chips on the 9800 XT pcb as I could. I learned that trick from "Hipro 5"......the OC Master!!:p

[pkrew]

Batboy, there's a version of rage3d that works with the xt. I believe its 3.9b. Yeah, I was only able to get 438/390 on stock cooling with mine. I'm able to get 450/403 with a giant II and OCZ ramsinks. I suspect you'll do a lot better with your water cooling

[batboy]

Kraig, as I mentioned in an earlier post, this was with totally stock cooling (no mods) in my air cooled 2.8C rig. I don't have a side panel fan on this case, but I have a big ol' 120mm side panel mounted fan that blows on the vid card in my water cooled case.

I got a whole bunch of little sinks, so I'll probably take your advice and stick them everywhere. Maybe the stock cooling on these 9800 XT cards look more impressive than they actually work.

Still, I've seen at least a half dozen reviews that claim 450/390 overclocks. Sort of disappointing after paying big bucks on this dawg. Oh well, time to start modding this sucker I guess. I'm bound to make some decent improvements once it's water cooled.