- Joined
- Nov 10, 2005
As long as you have decent case airflow, and you don't live in a place without A/C, an aftermarket videocard cooler will make a significant difference on temps and noise levels.
I run an accelero XP on my 6950 and it basically stays nearly silent and <65C. It'll be different for every card/configuration, but a few C difference is fairly meaningless. I'd trade a marginally-warmer CPU for drastically-reduced noise levels anyday, and I've never understood the claimed advantages in a rear-exhaust cooler when the tradeoff is noise at load.
One thing to keep in mind, if you swap out a new cooler, you will have to add custom heatsinks for the PWM and RAMsinks. Most of the AC models come with heatsinks and thermal adhesive though, so you should be fine with those. I went with all copper and sekisui thermal tape when I set mine up (see link in sig) but you don't really have to go to those extremes since the kit sinks work well-enough.
I run an accelero XP on my 6950 and it basically stays nearly silent and <65C. It'll be different for every card/configuration, but a few C difference is fairly meaningless. I'd trade a marginally-warmer CPU for drastically-reduced noise levels anyday, and I've never understood the claimed advantages in a rear-exhaust cooler when the tradeoff is noise at load.
One thing to keep in mind, if you swap out a new cooler, you will have to add custom heatsinks for the PWM and RAMsinks. Most of the AC models come with heatsinks and thermal adhesive though, so you should be fine with those. I went with all copper and sekisui thermal tape when I set mine up (see link in sig) but you don't really have to go to those extremes since the kit sinks work well-enough.
im a former amd fan, who's switched over
