SOLVED Reference Sapphire 7970 very, very loud...make it stop?

Hey everyone:

I've got a reference Sapphire 7970 that is awesome, but runs very loudly at stock settings, and even moreso overclocked. Even at 40% fan it's obnoxiously loud, and I can hear it through my headset. The cooling could use an upgrade (if that's possible). I've seen the Accelero coolers that can be attached, but they seem to be somewhat difficult to install. Are there any other choices or options? If someone (or some someones) with some knowledge on the topic post me links for purchase, I'd be grateful (newegg or amazon preferred).

What is the best way to lower fan noise on a reference 7970?

Thanks in advance.

What are your temps? What type of case, side panel on or off...etc more details the better.

The arctic accelerator coolers are good coolers and nice a quiet. We have some reviewed on our frontpage and there are other reviews on the web. I say check them out and find one that meets your budget.

I am sure others will chime in.

bmwbaxter said:

What are your temps? What type of case, side panel on or off...etc more details the better.

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I have a CM Storm Trooper case, and recently my temps have gone up a little bit. Idle is fine, idling and all. When I'm gaming it reaches up to anywhere between 80-90c not overclocked and fan speed set between 40-50%. Side panel is on or off, temps don't change much.

I would stick an arctic cooler triple fans system on it, i put it on my old 6950, it goes from loud *** hell and hot to cool and almost so quiet you dont here it.

The Thermalright Shaman is probably the best combination of performance and low noise out there, but I haven't tried mounting it on a HD7970. So, not sure if it would fit. The Arctic coolers are good as well.

An alternative would be to turn up the volume on your headset

Hey Pierre, thanks for the recommendation. That seems to be the one that people suggest the most. I have a feeling that that is probably where I will be headed, honestly. Decent price, but am worried about modding my video card with subpar instructions. :/ I'm a decent PC tinkerer, and have been building for 7ish years, do you think it's doable?

@Matt....ya know, turning up the volume works great til I can't hear anymore . I can still hear the vid card with the cans on and turned up relatively loudly (not to mention my roomie complains about the noise, which somehow she can hear from 2 rooms over while watching TV....hmmmm, maybe I should get her headphones).

kayan said:

Hey Pierre, thanks for the recommendation. That seems to be the one that people suggest the most. I have a feeling that that is probably where I will be headed, honestly. Decent price, but am worried about modding my video card with subpar instructions. :/ I'm a decent PC tinkerer, and have been building for 7ish years, do you think it's doable?

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It is do-able. When i did the retrofitting of the arctic cooling Extreme II on my old 6950 i was very worried I would break something, and instructions are best described as word saving. They are not good if you ask me.

There are videos on youtube, but non of them really made me feel 100% confident about doing the retro fitting.

But it wasnt that hard. Take the old cool off, and then clean off the chips from thermal mounting material. Follow the instructions on mixing the new thermal compound. There is more then enough, i suggest using only 50% to start with.

Before making the compound, set the cooling fins how you wish to place them, and place the main cooler onto the card. I ran into an issue where i have a cooling fin that was hitting the main GPU cooling heatsink.

The Glue needs to set for many hours, i suggest doing it, so that you can sleep, get up, go to work/school or so, and then the next day it should be set for mounting the main heatsink. Once that is mounted its a matter of installing into the system once more.

Good luck! They are really great coolers the AC Extreme's

Just for the 7970.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186064

Hey, sorry to ask so many questions about this, but do you guys think that it'd be worthwhile for me to put a water based cooler on my GPU, or should I just stick to the Accelero 7970 that Hardass linked?

I wouldn't begin to know where to start looking for a water block, or whatever would be used for this ��

Just stick with air. Water is nice, but needs to be maintained.

Also if not done properly it wont be any quieter.

Just go with air.

Kk, thanks bmwbaxter. Will do. Thanks everyone for the replies and help.

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who gave me suggestions. I ended up ordering the Arctic Xtreme 7970 and installed it 2 weeks ago.

The install was a pain in the @$$, and the thermal adhesive took 24+ hours to cure, but it has made my video card MUCH quieter, and the temps have dropped from about 55-60 idle to 29-33 idle, and from 90-95 running Furmark to 60-65 while doing the same.

The install was very time consuming and quite difficult, and I was scared to death that I was going to fry my GPU, but everything works great now. Thanks again for the help

kayan said:

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who gave me suggestions. I ended up ordering the Arctic Xtreme 7970 and installed it 2 weeks ago.

The install was a pain in the @$$, and the thermal adhesive took 24+ hours to cure, but it has made my video card MUCH quieter, and the temps have dropped from about 55-60 idle to 29-33 idle, and from 90-95 running Furmark to 60-65 while doing the same.

The install was very time consuming and quite difficult, and I was scared to death that I was going to fry my GPU, but everything works great now. Thanks again for the help

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Thats how we all feel the first time.

But great to hear all went well, and yes, it does take a life time to cure, when all you want to do i play games