Is a Crystal Orb worth it?

[explorer]

I ordered a Visiontek Geforce 3 Ti 200 that should be arriving very soon and I was wondering if it is worth upgrading to a Crystal Orb. Will the overclockability become much greater with a new cooler?

Thanks,
Explorer

[TranceBear]

Originally posted by explorer
I ordered a Visiontek Geforce 3 Ti 200 that should be arriving very soon and I was wondering if it is worth upgrading to a Crystal Orb. Will the overclockability become much greater with a new cooler?

Thanks,
Explorer

Well any cooling would be good. If it fits then it wouldn't hurt. Orbs make very good chipset coolers but horrible CPU coolers. If it would fit I would switch from my Blorb.

[Kingslayer]

It will always be better when you put a higher performing cooler on your GPU. The Crystal Orb is decent, and it's actually flat. If you can get a 1U copper socket370 heatsink, that's even better. GlobalWin has a nice GPU heatsink. You can even go as far as to use the stock heatsinks that come with PIII's. Watercooling and peltiers are there too. Just depends on how much you want to push the limits of that card.

If you're just going to mildly overclock it a Crystal Orb and some cheap memory heatsinks, like the tin coated copper ones will do just fine.

[d00b]

I've had so many heatsinks and fans collected from over the years, I just mutilated a socket7 sink for the back of my GPU, and cut up some old Voodoo3 sinks (I had 3 Voodoo3's lying around) for the RAM... mounted a bigass fan to blow strong over the whole thing... and it seemed to work quite nicely

[Sonny]

You could always go for something bigger:D

http://www.alphanovatech.com/images/c_pal15.jpg

Big & really nice. A mini Alpha PAL 8045. They call it a IU cooler:beer:

[Silversinksam]

The Alpha pal 15u or 153 rocks as a Gpu cooler

http://www.ocshoot.com/ultra/hot/assy.jpg

[maap]

Well I have two of them and with the two, mixed results.

The first one of TT Crystal Orbs went on my Gainward GF2 Pro/450 Golden Sample. Pre CORB couldn't get the core stable past 235. With a little ASII and the CORB, core is stable at 245. Got an extra 10mhz and runs cooler.

The second and probably of more interest to you was put on my new PNY GF3 Ti200. The card already O/C's like crazy with stock cooling 255/560. Thought the CORB might get me over 260 on the core. Didn't, no change in core stability. Still can't get past 255 although I'm sure it's running cooler. Chip limit most likely.

I guess it comes down to how far can you take the core now? If it can go in the 240+ range with stock cooling it's probably not worth it but just like in my case, I'm sure it will run cooler. If you got the bucks to blow, why not? They look good and like previously posted, there are other alternatives.

[Sonny]

maap - Is it the chips limit or have you run out of voltage? Looks like you need to do a voltmad on that GPU for the next step in speed.

[Cisco Kid]

Yeah a Corb will help ya out it did to my 7500.

Cisco Kid:D

[HaM]

Well what would be THE BEST GPU heatsink, other than watercooling? Those alphas?

[Cisco Kid]

Originally posted by HaM
Well what would be THE BEST GPU heatsink, other than watercooling? Those alphas?

Yes the Alpha would be the best just like Silversinksam!!

Cisco Kid:)

[Dissolved]

who sells those alphas? id like to get spec's on them.
i was gonna get a crystal orb, but maybe ill just get one of those..

[Dissolved]

Originally posted by Dissolved
who sells those alphas? id like to get spec's on them.
i was gonna get a crystal orb, but maybe ill just get one of those..

also would it be best to drill it and use the holes in the vid card to mount it? or use epoxy?

[charliesav]

The Tt Crystal orb looks a good cooler much better than the blue orb makes the blue orb look like it came out of a cracker.

i'm putting mine on my kt266a chipset to replace the thing that's on it now.
i use a blue orb on a v7700 gts 200/333 @ 250/420 stable 50 deg the highest the chipset has been at.

[Dissolved]

would the Alpha PAL153U be the best choice? i was thinking about drilling holes threw it to hold it on the vid card... good idea?
34.95 at 2CoolTek.com

[funnyperson1]

Originally posted by Dissolved
would the Alpha PAL153U be the best choice? i was thinking about drilling holes threw it to hold it on the vid card... good idea?
34.95 at 2CoolTek.com

yup, just as long as you make a good clamp use a piece of metal or plastic on the back to make sure that its evenly screwed on...

[Dissolved]

Originally posted by funnyperson1


yup, just as long as you make a good clamp use a piece of metal or plastic on the back to make sure that its evenly screwed on...

ho much of a gain do u think id get? id like 270/600 on my ti500

[funnyperson1]

Originally posted by Dissolved


ho much of a gain do u think id get? id like 270/600 on my ti500

hmm....at most youll hit 290....a more reasonable expectation is 275-280 the things youll gan more than performace thpough is longetivity at that speed....

[Sonny]

Originally posted by Dissolved
how much of a gain do u think id get? id like 270/600 on my ti500 The cooling will get you there but you might have to do a voltmod on your VCard to get it that high. Cooling is just the start:beer:

[Dissolved]

Originally posted by sonny
The cooling will get you there but you might have to do a voltmod on your VCard to get it that high. Cooling is just the start:beer:

i have a voltage dip switch for up to 2.7v... but i tryed useing it, and it makes my pc very unstable... same with the ddr.. so i dunno. guess i need a new psu.

[Sonny]

Originally posted by Dissolved
i have a voltage dip switch for up to 2.7v... but i tryed useing it, and it makes my pc very unstable... same with the ddr.. so i dunno. guess i need a new psu. Isnt that for your RAM?

[Dissolved]

Originally posted by sonny
Isnt that for your RAM?

no, i have it for my ram and agp.