ATI Silencer 5 rev. 2 on 850 XT PE review

Well, a couple days ago I was looking at the replacement cooling options specifically for the 850 XT PE, and found a couple reviews of the cooler, but not on the 850 XT PE. So I thought I will post this to help anyone else looking out there.


Got my VisionTek 850 XT PE yesterday, which looks like this, minus it's agp:
http://images10.newegg.com/NeweggImage/productimage/14-129-043-03.JPG

Likewise, on the way home from class, I stopped at a small hole in the wall computer store, and by chance saw an ATI Silenver 5 rev. 2 for 29.99! so I picked up.

Now, on the ati cards, the fan default is dynamic speed, where it never really runs over 35% unless you are hitting 100C plus. So far the test, I ran 3dmark 2001se looped for about an hour, and played Half Life 2 lost coast for roughly an hour.

First at Idle:
Stock-Dynamic-55C
Stock-100%-37C
ATI Silencer-100%-34


2001se:
Stock-Dynamic- 98C
Stock-100%-67C
ATI Silencer-100%-52C

Half Life
Stock-Dynamic-97C
Stock-100%-67C
Ati Silencer-100%-51C

I just realized that I only ran the Silencer at 100%, but honestly, it's a lot quieter than the stocker at 100%, so in reality you'd always probably run the silencer at 100%. So is it worth the money? I'd say so. I was suprised in the substanstial decrease in temperature over the stocker. Installation was breeze.

Indyxc

Nice results...... those XTPE cards do run warmer than I'm used to. Were you able to get the memory flush against the cooler on the core side? I know on my ATI-Silencer 5 rev2 and X800XL I had to use the thick pads to get contact on the core side ram.

Thats a good improvement, I think I might get one for my x850XT - might be able to squeeze out a few more clocks.

Houserat- The new ones apparently come with large thermal pads. So contact is pretty good.

The only odd thing, is the memory on this card clocks like a dog. ATITool Max speed detection goes below stock! There are no visual artificats until 598. So it only overclocked 8MHZ! How weak is that?

The core is decent though. I got it up to 625 right now, and it's running stable. Atitool had to at 640, but it crashed on me, so I'm going up by 5 mhz, playing BF2 for ~2 hours, and adding another 5 if it runs ok.

Indyxc1 said:

Houserat- The new ones apparently come with large thermal pads. So contact is pretty good.

The only odd thing, is the memory on this card clocks like a dog. ATITool Max speed detection goes below stock! There are no visual artificats until 598. So it only overclocked 8MHZ! How weak is that?

Click to expand...

The thermal pads are what I was referring to. Not likely much heat is going to go through all that pad. That's the reason I switched to Zalman. The way Arctic Cooling tries to cool the core side memory is ineffective at best.

Yeah, but the Zalman ramsinks are tiny too, to be really effective. The artic silencer is more so a temporary solution, as I'm too busy with school to build anything right now.But the plate they include to cool the rear sinks actually gets pretty warm, so it must be doing something. That's pretty curious though as the ram can't be consuming more than 2-3 watts a piece.

I was thinking about sending this card back, because like I said when I use the "Find Max Mem" option it ends up clocking the memory below default, around 585. In reality, I don't see anything at 595. 600 I get the tearing once in a while in games. It's a legitimate claim I guess, since it doesn't even qualify for the standard speed.

But the core is solid, it's up to 630 right now, and running just fine. It's nice to be back to ATI overclocking. One thing I ALWAYS hated about Nvidia, is when you go to high on the clocks, you don't get artifacts, you just get a hard lock. Makes life difficult.

water is the way to go with the x850 imho, im loading at 42C in this weather with 1.72v gpu, gaming at 670/640 all day

Yeah, there is something wrong with the card anyway. After playing games for a while the textures begin to *shimmer* even at stock speeds. I think the memory, like I said is not up to par running at even stock speeds. The problem goes away when I run the mem. at 570 or so.

So I think I'm going to send this thing back. Problem is there are no more in stock. Looks like I might have to take the PCIE plunge.

bobmanfoo said:

water is the way to go with the x850 imho, im loading at 42C in this weather with 1.72v gpu, gaming at 670/640 all day

Click to expand...

What kind of clocks were you getting with it before the volt mod, and on air cooling?

Thanks
Indyxc

i never even ran it on air.... 600mhz on the core is what i got with just a waterblock and no vmods, but i know temps played a major role in my current OC, i had POS waterblock and WC loop... koolance gpu block and the CM Aquagate... thats what i had to get 600mhz with no vmod, i gained at least 20mhz with my current WC vmodded over the old WCing... which was a little worse than good air cooling with gpu and cpu in the loop, i should have done more testing... ...... now time for a tall glass of water and 2 acetaminophen... aka Tylenol

now that i think about it i think i got around 580-585 on air with no vmods... im not sure though

Just got one of these babies, its an APG. and am trying to get the best from it. Its at 590/600, with a 3d05 of 6120. This is with my rig specs as below.
Is this good/bad/average.

next question,
How do i get the fan to run at different loads. It does seem to whine at start up, but then calm's down.

Thanks,