X1800XT cooling options

batboy · Nov 9, 2005

Hopefully by the end of the month I'll be ready to order a new X1800XT, so I figure it's never too early to start planning what to do about cooling.

Oh yeah, I'm talking air cooling here, preferably nothing too complex, massive, or outrageous.

Is it correct that ATI has changed the mounting holes? I sort of remember a comment by Viper John saying there are 4 holes around the core now.

Are there any decent coolers that are a direct bolt on or at least with minimal modding?

Surely some of you X1800 pioneers have started modding the cooling already. Pics are encouraged.

El<(')>Maxi · Nov 9, 2005

From the pics around I have seen the stock XT cooler looks pretty damn good actually. And the air clocks achieved on it are nothing to be sneezed at. Mounting is the same as Nvidia now.

Sentential · Nov 9, 2005

The Zalman VF700 fits that card just fine.

batboy · Nov 9, 2005

El<(')>Maxi said:
From the pics around I have seen the stock XT cooler looks pretty damn good actually. And the air clocks achieved on it are nothing to be sneezed at. Mounting is the same as Nvidia now.

Leave it stock??? That's anti-overclockers.com and blasphemy.

RangerXLT8 · Nov 9, 2005

The Zalman VF700 series coolers bolt right onto the X1800 2.1" bolt pattern. I'm running the Fatal1ty V7 which is the supercharged VF700, fanspeed is 33% faster.

batboy · Nov 9, 2005

I was just reading about the Fatal1ty version of the Zalman VF700, then checked back here... lo and behold... Ranger posted pics. Looks sharp with the red theme. Did it give you better temps than stock? Is it still relatively quiet on the high setting?

Sentential · Nov 9, 2005

batboy said:
I was just reading about the Fatal1ty version of the Zalman VF700, then checked back here... lo and behold... Ranger posted pics. Looks sharp with the red theme. Did it give you better temps than stock? Is it still relatively quiet on the high setting?

Keep in mind that he is using an XL

RangerXLT8 · Nov 9, 2005

batboy said:
I was just reading about the Fatal1ty version of the Zalman VF700, then checked back here... lo and behold... Ranger posted pics. Looks sharp with the red theme. Did it give you better temps than stock? Is it still relatively quiet on the high setting?

thanks, Lol the red theme worked out nice, supposedlythe paint conducts heat faster to on the V7 helping heat dissipate faster.... The temps are about 11c lower then stock cooling. As far as putting the VF700 on an XT, though XT cooler looks decent, the VF700 line is top notch, can be run at 5v or 12v, and IMO is the best VGA hsf on the market. As far as noise, it's not any louder then a Vantec Stealth80mm or a Panaflo Low speed 80mm.

deathman20 · Nov 9, 2005

Yup I got the same fan setup as Ranger. Even though its an XL, pump it up to XT voltage and it runs fine too

Only thing is I don't have CCC installed anymore but when I did i checked the thermal differences from the card and the thermal sensor I placed on the heatsink near the core. I come to around 44-48C loaded, taking into account the 10C difference from my senor and the CCC program I came up with earlier, during benching to a few hours of game play. Now thats with the fan and an extra 120mm fan blowing up at the card at an angle, opened the back slots up and whala, you got a nice setup

batboy · Nov 10, 2005

Taking into account the XT stock cooler is better than the XL cooler and the fact that the XT runs at a higher voltage than the XL, the Zalman still looks like it cools a little better and sure looks a lot better. So, the popular opinion is the VF700 and specifically the Fatal1ty version is probably as good as it gets as far as "bolt on" coolers... at least until Arctic Silencer makes a cooler specifically for the X1800?

Ok, what about modded cooling? Anyone on the forum customize their card yet? What has people seen while surfing? What kind of magic does Viper John have up his sleeve? I have a stock Intel LGA775 cooler gathering dust, maybe I should see how hard it would be to make an adapter (would probably hang over at least 2 slots). I also a XP-120 heatsink... hmmmm... now that would be interesting.

deathman20 · Nov 10, 2005

Well havn't seen much of anythnig custom cooler wise yet.

But you do have 4 mounting holes, so you can definatlly start looking into bigger coolers that should mount easier.

Vrykyl · Nov 10, 2005

im a right in remebering that the x1800 series have the same mounting holes as a 7800gtx? could you not in that instance slap a stasis cooler on there?

batboy · Nov 10, 2005

My first thought was, "What's a stasis cooler?"

Used the search function and found out what a stasis cooler was all about. Interesting. I noticed there is a stasis cooler available for the 7800 series that looks pretty good. Here is a long Nvidia section thread about it.
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=413533

Here is another thread about Icestorm stasis coolers.
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=422972

Here is a do it yourself mod using a Xeon heatsink.
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=419610

I'm glad Vrykyl mentioned this, because it might be a good mod. Looks like these 7800 coolers are showing a 15 degree drop in load temps over the stock. Let's keep in mind that while these coolers will probably fit the X1800 core, other components or memory chips on the card might interfer since the PCB layout is different than Nvidia.

El<(')>Maxi · Nov 10, 2005

This looks interesting for a 24/7 rig.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Thermaltake/TideWater

I'm using this atm on my XL, but there is a cold bug.

batboy · Nov 10, 2005

That Tidewater link was... well... interesting. Don't think it's for me though.

I just took my old trusty Swifty GPU block (vid card loop) out of the watercooled system. I had the old style 2-hole ATI block that probably wouldn't work on the new X1800 anyway. I decided to simplify my H2O system and reserve all the cooling power to my hot Prescott.

Ok, back to modding the X1800. I've been looking at pics of the card and cooler (see link). I wonder how this would work? How about cutting a square hole above the copper heatsink in the stock cooler, then mounting a fan to the top. This would blow air through the fins and some would be exhausted by the stock fan out the back and some would exhaust out the front of the card housing.

http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/ati/r520/index2.php

X1800XT cooling options

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