The Radeon 4870 isn't hot!!

I've only had this 4870 in here for about a day, but so far, it appears to be a very cool running video card! I took a reference 4870 1GB, and put a lot of heatsinks on it. I have the "Iandh" heatsinks on the RAM, and voltage regulators. Then I put my own heatsinks on the Pulse and Vitec components, just to be safe. Due to the nice sized memory heatsink, I have to modify the ThermalRight HR-03GT to fit. I had to bend the heatpipes to make it over the heatsink. Then I mounted a Panasonic 80mm fan to it. There is a lot of airflow around there, and I had to use the 80mm so my 120mm exhaust on the back of my case would fit. I used MX2 thermal compound, and didn't even lap the HR03-GT. My room temperature is cooler now because it's winter, but it's usually close to 80F. I am not overclocking the video card, or underclocking it.

Idle = 35C
Load = 41C

I played Deus Ex 2 for about half an hour, and got to about 38C at full settings. Age of Empires 3 hit 41C or so after 45 minutes. For reference, in the same system, with the same airflow, my single height 3870 was over 90C, stock heatsink, in AOE3. I know the heatsink makes all the difference, but I was expecting the 4870 to run hotter, even with a nice heatsink.

My 3650 (2 slots below this) runs at 40C idle, with the stock Sapphire heatsink that has been sanded to 2000 grit, and decent thermal compound. Even my CPUs run hotter.

Are other people getting results similar to this, with similar heatsinks? This is definitely my favorite video card. It even gives me the temperature of all 3 phases of voltage regulation!

You've got $75 or more of aftermarket heatsinks on it, it better be cool I'm sure most of the 'hot' complaints are with the stock HSF, did you try it at all?

The stocker for a 4870 is actually quite beast like, just gotta add fan.

as said, you added cooling, thats why

Now it's time for some photos

Mine idles at 42c w/ stock cooler @ 35% (not really audible to me). Itll get to about 60c on full load.

Not bad IMO. Ill take it for stock cooling

I have everything stock on my Diamond 1GB and I run it at 44 degrees idle @ 34% speed and the upper 50's @ 60% fan speed at load according to CCC.

Yeah, I guess I did spend a lot on cooling, but I don't think it's that big of a deal considering how expensive video cards are. Using the stock heatsink wasn't an option for me since I don't have room for a double height cooler. I have to use the HR-03GT so that the heatsink is above the video card, and it's in my top PCI-E slot.

The stock heatsink didn't look that bad to me. It looks like it has a copper base heatsink, with aluminum fins. The rest of the heatsink that goes on the RAM and Voltage Regulators is a separate piece. Then of course the fan is a separate plastic piece sitting on top of everything.

the new non reference design using a difference PBC seems to run much cooler then the original ATI design.

Which new non reference design is this? Do you have a link?

I saw a Sapphire one, but it looked like garbage. It reminded me of my 3870, which was boiling hot.

I'll like to see a GPU-Z screen shot to see the VDDC, mem and GPU temps.

If they are all cool, perhaps you want to volt mod. You may get ~860 on the core and 1200mhz+ on the memory.

http://www.techpowerup.com/articles//overclocking/voltmods/153/3

post your picture of your card in here
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=528336