mmmmmmmmmmm silence

i finally cracked. i couldnt stand the stock 6800ultra heatsink anymore. though it looks kinda cool (and sounds like its really doin' somn), i needed something that i could run all night, and not feel like i was sleeping on an aircraft runway.

anyways, i got one of those Zalman VF700-ALCU gpu heatinks . HOLY CRAP THIS THING IS AWSOME.

right now its running at about 52C idle (down from 60 idle first boot), and as the AS5 burns in its going lower still. not to mention that this thing is now completely silent. the loudest thing in here now is my 120mm case fan (or the 120mm cpu fan, cant tell which). and thats on highest setting too!

i recommend this to any owner of a 6800 who's sick of that beast of a stock cooler.

i ll try to update this into a bit more formal of a review after i load test it all night.

I know several people who run their zalman vf700's at 5 volts - unless your case is a sturdy one, the ball-bearings will make their characteristic clatter. i'll probably go with the same part, but detach the fan and stick a 92mm fan pointing at it with a thermistor attached to the heatsink itself.

the vf700 is better than almost any other vga heatsink of similar size, while being much much quieter i agree. however silence is a strong word where i'm from

well the noise is so low i can't tell if its my psu, hsf, rear fan, or the zalman making the noise. and all of those fans are 120mm (except the psu, which is a 92).

its loud as **** with the front fan and side on though (both hooked up to the same controller), probably because the side is pulling through a grill and the front is pulling through the front grill, one of those stock pourous grills on the frame, then pushing through a grill on my hard drive rack .

anyways, right now i'm idling at 51 c, at 451 core and 1.15 mem. at load, the temps get up to 57 max. with the stock, it was idling at around 60, reaching 67 load, with an overclock of around 430 and 1.10.

i'm trying to decide wether to go with some kind of duct, or just another fan to bring those temps down a bit more. will most likely do a fairly complex system like the one in the main page (i think its titled "as cheap as free"), and cut out some of the grills in the front, but i wont have time for a while.

the zalman is a nice cooler. i got a 50mhz oc w/ it on my 9800pro. dont know why they shipped it w/ ram sinks since they do almost nothing for the ram