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4850's in xfire & cooling

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Nebulous

Dreadnought Class Senior
Joined
Oct 11, 2002
Location
The Empire State
Hey guyz I need some advice/suggestions here. I'll be going crossfire soon with a pair of 4850's. Well all know how hot these suckers run and the stock cooler ain't worth sh*t to cool them. Especially gaming when I have to ramp up that fan to something like 65%. @ 55% is quite noisy and anything beyond that is just anoying as hell loud, not to mention the heat output :eek:

I need a pair of coolers for them, but I need to make sure the coolers are slim enough to run in crossfire mode with them knockin into eachother and preventing airflow to the top card.

I was looking at both the Xigmatek's Battle Axe & Scythe's Musashi. All the reviews I read about the Battle Axe are disapointing to say the least. However the Musashi scored alot better, especially with the included ramsinks and such.

Question is can I run 2 musashi's and will I have room for them in my setup to xfire them?

I found Jab-tech to be the cheapest out of all my searches.
 
The Musashi is a nice cooler, but for the money you cannot beat the Accelero S1. The newest Rev2 ones come with all of the additional VRM sinks you'd need as well. Provided you have some airflow running across the cards you can run them passively with the Acceleros, or if you have enough space between them, zip-tie one or two 120mm fans to each heat sink. With Acceleros and some zip-tied fans, you can't really beat it for the money. :thup:

Here's how my setup looked (I've since added some slot fans to the spaces above and below each card, also added a fan to the case side panel aimed at each card's VRM, and I will zip-tying a 120mm fan to the bottom card as soon as I buy another fan :p):
 

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Happy with my battle axe, although you have to use the nvidia chipset sink and a couple of ram sinks to cool the fets/vrms.


Only thing I did not like about it was one of the standoffs broke. Its affixed now with 3 standoffs and a tiny wood screw LOL


Still works well

my second 4850 is using the funky looking sappphire stock cooler, and it stays very cool runnign as well. Oddly, I think it cools just a swell as the battle axe, (which cools about 40C better than the stock cooler) and overclocks well too even without ram sinks!

BattleAxe would have been a steal if I had ever mailed in my MIR, :p

And I do not know anything about the Scythe cooler. The accelero is the only other 4850 cooler I have seen mentioned much, and it runs int othe same problems as the battle axe. With Fans its honking huge!!!
 
Got a link for those? I have pretty good airflow thru the case, but the 4850's run extremely hot. Don't think I'll run them passive.

The problem here is clearance between the 2 cards. I had to ditch the HR-03 because it takes up 3 slots and noway of mounting it upright on a Rampage Formula because of the SB/NB sink.
 
The problem here is clearance between the 2 cards. I had to ditch the HR-03 because it takes up 3 slots and noway of mounting it upright on a Rampage Formula because of the SB/NB sink.

Ah, I see what you mean now. You could possibly mount a small fan onto the end of the card by the PCI-E power connector, aim it towards the rear?
 
Ah, I see what you mean now. You could possibly mount a small fan onto the end of the card by the PCI-E power connector, aim it towards the rear?

Actually I mounted a Lian Li 120mm fan via the slot covers right against the card. Works quite well and it'll do just fine towards both cards.

So ditch the musashi's and go with the S1 Rev 2's instead?
 
I can safely assume judging from your sig running 2 HR-03 gt can work as long you don't have other pci devices and assuming it wont conflict with your ram slots.

I would say it would work if you mount it over the card like this.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814143169

The problem with this set up is clearance around the ram slots and you will need to use and find 2 long crossfire cables to get around the heatsink heatpipes. The cables are extremely rare and PITA to look for since they commonly only come with high end AM2 boards. (I got mine from ebay)
 
I can safely assume judging from your sig running 2 HR-03 gt can work as long you don't have other pci devices and assuming it wont conflict with your ram slots.

I would say it would work if you mount it over the card like this.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814143169

The problem with this set up is clearance around the ram slots and you will need to use and find 2 long crossfire cables to get around the heatsink heatpipes. The cables are extremely rare and PITA to look for since they commonly only come with high end AM2 boards. (I got mine from ebay)

No can do. The HR-03 is too large and will not clear the NB sink on my Rampage Formula. I tried that already and it was a no-go :( Thx for the help tho.
 
lol if that's the case then I would use aftermarket heatsinks for the chipsets but then you'll end up spending alot more since the whole thing is one piece heatsink :(
 
lol if that's the case then I would use aftermarket heatsinks for the chipsets but then you'll end up spending alot more since the whole thing is one piece heatsink :(

Yeah I know. That's too much trouble neways.

So it's down to either the Musashi's or the S1 rev 2's. So far the musashi's, costing a bit more, have the fans & the sinks.

The S1 rev 2's have the sinks, but lack the fans. Of course they're cheaper too.

Hmm.......
 
id say take the mushi because they have 2 100mm fans with them

I'd still go with the S1 rev2, and then buy some cheap YL mediums and strap them on. Get four Yate Loons for $20 plus shipping and it should still come out cheaper in the end, and larger fans. :D The problem I see with the Rampage Formula is with how close the bottom PCI-E slot is to the bottom edge of the board, with that design I can see how some cases won't give you the room to mount a cooling solution that takes up three slots (such as an accelero S1 with a fan, and that Musashi looks like it takes up three slots too). In that situation hopefully the case would be roomy enough to mount another fan inside the case and aim it at the lower card.
 
I'd still go with the S1 rev2, and then buy some cheap YL mediums and strap them on. Get four Yate Loons for $20 plus shipping and it should still come out cheaper in the end, and larger fans. :D The problem I see with the Rampage Formula is with how close the bottom PCI-E slot is to the bottom edge of the board, with that design I can see how some cases won't give you the room to mount a cooling solution that takes up three slots (such as an accelero S1 with a fan, and that Musashi looks like it takes up three slots too). In that situation hopefully the case would be roomy enough to mount another fan inside the case and aim it at the lower card.

I've got a RocketFish case so there's plenty of room. Even with the psu on the bottom, there's still room enough. The problem is not with the bottom card, but the top card and the space between the two.
 
the motherboard layout is your factor. The mushi will definately fit with 2 fans and it's practically buy then done deal. If you use the AC, measure the amount of available space around the card then subtract how much the AC will take, that way you can determine how much room is left if you can fit a 120mm fan if at all. Ok at j-t the mush is like $40 (they only have 2 left in stock) and comes with 2 fans. Your buying 2 so that's like $80 + $10-15 ($90 total?) in shipping 2 heatsinks and 4 fans total.

S1 rev.2 is like $25 so X 2 and it's $50 before shipping, add 2 yates $6 and total up shipping will be estimated $65-70 but you will risk that the fans will not be blowing on to the card since the amount of space for the top card is limited thanks to position of the video card
 
does the vortex blow air on to the vregs?

From the link above:
Thanks to the smart airflow, Vortexx Neo provides high thermal performance with much improved acoustic levels. An Akasa designed 80mm lo-noise fan draws cool air from the case through the coolers fins and exhausts the heated air out of the case rear panel. The innovative design directs some of the airflow to cool board components including the VGA voltage regulators, it is crucial for graphics performance and stability to keep these components within thermal operating parameters.
 
I actually like that vortex cooler, too bad Google keeps getting me tornado results so I'm having a hard time finding reviews :(

Here is a user review on it (no ambient temperature so kind of useless)
http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?p=1001143
He said he got
-Akasa Vortexx Neo: 42C IDLE // 66C LOAD
-Stock Cooler 70% fan: 50C IDLE // 97C LOAD
-Stock Cooler 100% fan: 48C IDLE // 91C LOAD
 
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