- Joined
- Mar 28, 2003
So I received my NV Silencer 5 on Monday and decided to put it on the card without any thermal paste to see how far the GPU core really way from the cooler, since I've heard some horror stories about it not touching the core. Turns out it's true, my cooler was at least 2mm away from the cooler. Now a thick layer of thermal paste could fix that, but you'd get horrible temps. So I went to lap it!
It took two four-hour nights to get "good" results. Yes, the GPU now touches the cooler just like it should, but it turned out I lapped the RAM sinks just a TAD too much. No harm done there though, since I don't over clock THAT much, and GDDR3 runs relatively cool even under load.
So, I put some of their Thermal Silicone Paste on the RAM chips, since I had plenty left over from my NV Silencer 2 and the tube that came with the 5. At least the RAM sinks are almost touching the cooler! Put some Arctic Ceramique on the GPU core and put all it all back together.
I power the system on, now with the NV Silencer on my 6800GT, and log into windows to check video temps. Says 49......and slowly rising. It eventually tops off at 53-54°C idle, not to bad. Idle temps with the reference cooler were 52°C after removing thermal pads and applying AS3. Keep in mind that I'm one who likes a silent computer.
I stress test the video cards with some Farbrausch demos. fr-08, the one in 64kb, and the fr-19 demo. The farbrausch demos have always heated my video card up and hit the highest load temps by the end of the demo. My previous load temp with the stock cooler was 79°C!!!!! Now it's down to a mere 68°C, that's an 11-digit difference! With the sacrifice of idle temps rising to 54 instead of 52, I now have much lower load temps, which I am very pleased with.
The only thing that disappointed me was that the NV Silencer 5 wasn't ready to be installed right out of the packaging. I'm disappointed in Artic's video coolers and this is going to be the last one I buy of their, next time it's a Zalman. I'm somewhat angry with myself for lapping the RAM sinks a bit too much, since I'm a perfectionist, but I'll live. It doesn't seem as if the back of the chips is getting to hot, nor is the cooler surface that the chips are under, so I think I'm safe.
Has anyone else had THIS big of a problem with the NV Silencer 5? Larry Quinn destroyed his out of frustration from buying a crappy product, and I don't blame him, I almost did the same.
~C.P.
It took two four-hour nights to get "good" results. Yes, the GPU now touches the cooler just like it should, but it turned out I lapped the RAM sinks just a TAD too much. No harm done there though, since I don't over clock THAT much, and GDDR3 runs relatively cool even under load.
So, I put some of their Thermal Silicone Paste on the RAM chips, since I had plenty left over from my NV Silencer 2 and the tube that came with the 5. At least the RAM sinks are almost touching the cooler! Put some Arctic Ceramique on the GPU core and put all it all back together.
I power the system on, now with the NV Silencer on my 6800GT, and log into windows to check video temps. Says 49......and slowly rising. It eventually tops off at 53-54°C idle, not to bad. Idle temps with the reference cooler were 52°C after removing thermal pads and applying AS3. Keep in mind that I'm one who likes a silent computer.
I stress test the video cards with some Farbrausch demos. fr-08, the one in 64kb, and the fr-19 demo. The farbrausch demos have always heated my video card up and hit the highest load temps by the end of the demo. My previous load temp with the stock cooler was 79°C!!!!! Now it's down to a mere 68°C, that's an 11-digit difference! With the sacrifice of idle temps rising to 54 instead of 52, I now have much lower load temps, which I am very pleased with.
The only thing that disappointed me was that the NV Silencer 5 wasn't ready to be installed right out of the packaging. I'm disappointed in Artic's video coolers and this is going to be the last one I buy of their, next time it's a Zalman. I'm somewhat angry with myself for lapping the RAM sinks a bit too much, since I'm a perfectionist, but I'll live. It doesn't seem as if the back of the chips is getting to hot, nor is the cooler surface that the chips are under, so I think I'm safe.
Has anyone else had THIS big of a problem with the NV Silencer 5? Larry Quinn destroyed his out of frustration from buying a crappy product, and I don't blame him, I almost did the same.
~C.P.