My Adventures In Custom 6800GT Cooling!!!

[gvblake22]

My plan is to make a cheap, effective, "relatively" low-profile, very quiet cooling system for my PCI-Express XFX 6800GT. I currenyl have a Zalman VF700-AlCu heatsink fan on cooling the 6800GT GPU, but I want something with better performance, lower noise, and that is no more expensive.

So... Without further adieu, I bring you...
THE HEATSINK!

Yes, I ordered 3 of them. I will use one full heatsink for the GPU. The second I will cut up to cool the memory chips and the power regulator, while the last heatsink will simply be a spare in case I mess something up.

As you can see from the pictures below, the base of this all copper Xeon heatsink measures about 89mm long, 63mm wide. The base is about 6mm thick and the fins are about 16mm tall, making the entire heatsink (from bottom base to the top of the fins) about 22mm tall.

[gvblake22]

I will be going where I have never seen any other video card cooling mod go before and use a 92mm fan to actively cool this setup. I will be using a 25mm thick Delta EFB0912L Triple Blade fan. I chose this fan for several reasons. First off, it boasts air flow measurements of about 40cfm while keeping low noise at 29.5dB. Full fan specifications can be seen HERE.
The unique triple blade design of this fan also reduces turbulence created by the fan blades rotating at such high speeds. So in this smaller cooling space, an advantage such as this is very good.
Here's what the fan looks like compared to the heatsink:




The total height of the heatsink and fan is about 47mm, which is only 17mm taller than the two slot Zalman VF700 (which is 30mm high). So I'm expecting this cooling mod to take up about 3 slots.

[gvblake22]

The only problem so far with this heatsink is the fact that it shipped in pretty poor condition. As you can see from the picture below, the finish on the base leaves a lot to be desired. It almost looks dirty!

Looks like this thing will definately need a lapping!:


Ok... Time for some lapping!!!

[gvblake22]

DAMN CONCAVE HEATSINKS!!!
This is gonna take me a little longer than I thought. I'll have to bust out the 220 grit!

[gvblake22]

Almost flat, it's SO CLOSE!
I am starting to get REALLY tired of lapping this thing...


But finally I have the finished product:


...and a big thanks to Son1990 for my recent image hosting

[gvblake22]

Ok, well, of course, what good is a big mod project without your first bump in the road?!
I was getting ready to start the drilling/tapping and realized that I was a dumb @$$ and all my screws and taps were too big for the mounting holes on the board!!! ]
So after a trip back to the hardware store, I returned all my old parts and replaced them all with new, smaller screws. But, unfortunately, they didn't have any taps small enough for the new screws, so I had to change my design!
So now, instead of drilling and tapping holes in the base of the heatsink, I'll have to drill the hole (with no tapping) and then put the screw all the way through and have a nut on the other side. That also means I'll probably have to cut away some of the fins on the heatsink to make room for the screw head.
Anyway, thought I would give everyone a heads up as to my progress. My girlfriend is actually going to come over and help me do this mod tonight, so hopefully she'll be able to catch all my stupid mistakes.

And, of course, what good is an update without a picture?!
So here is a pic of all the pieces of the puzzle:


You'll just have to guess what all those extra nuts and bolts are for

[gvblake22]

Well, tonight has just turned into one big steaming pile of . . . .
Just about everything that could have gone wrong, did.
First, as I was drilling the holes in the bottom of the heatsink, the drill bit broke off inside the hole! So I had to spend like 20 minutes trying to get the f#$%er out. So I finally got the holes drilled. Just made a copy of the stock backplate and used it as a template to drill the holes:


Then I had to hack apart the fins over the holes to make room for the screw head to go through. This proved much more difficult than it seemed.


So after I was done making the heatsink look about as bad as it could, I found I had to cut the edges off to clear the RAM and the fan connector. This just made it look even more wonderful:


But, fortunately, one thing managed to go right. THE HOLES LINED UP!!!!!


But yeah, needless to say I don't think I will be finishing this project before christmas seeing as I had one hurdle after another and I have to go to my mom's house for the rest of the weekend for christmas.

My girlfriend I don't think had a very good time. It is the middle of winter here and our shop is not heated, so it was pretty cold. She basically just got cold and bored watching me swear and cuss at a piece of copper. I think she was expecting something better (and I'll admit, I was too), but it was just problem after problem!

Anyway, enough rambling...
I'll leave you with a picture of my dad's workshop. It's prettymuch a modder's paradise!!

[gvblake22]

I got the GPU heatsink actually INSTALLED and ready to go!!!
I actually used the springs from the stock heatsink on the new screws for tension/pressure management/equalization:


Here's the bottom of the card, you can see the four screws, nuts, and the black nylon washers coming through the board holding on the GPU heatsink.


and here it is installed (for good) on the 6800GT. Eventually I will replace the RAMsinks and the heatsink on the power chips using the same copper heatsink material:


After that was all installed, I started working on the shroud to hold the fan. It is a piece of 1/8" plexiglass (acrylic) cut about the size of the card. This was just more of a test or template piece (especially since it broke), but I have the long machine screws going through the board and they stick up above the heatsink and will hold the piece of plexi over the heatsink like a roof. The fan will then be positioned attached to the plexi over the top of the heatsink. This shroud has many benefits, including:
-Allows the fan to blow cooler air from the case instead of recycling the warm air from the heatsink.
-The shroud will help direct the warm air from the heatsink away from the fan and out the case.
-it will help direct more air across the RAMsinks and power chip heatsink for better cooling of those components.
-finally, it will add a nice, unique look to the whole mod 8)
So, here is what the TEMPORARY shroud looks like. It will give you an idea of what I have planned for the final version...
Here it is with no fan and just a couple screws. The two large, connected holes in the middle is where the 92mm fan hole will be; obviously this isn't how the final hole will look:


Here are some pics with the fan on top just to give you an idea of how it all look together:

[gvblake22]

My project isn't the flashiest thing around, but I think it looks pretty damn impressive, and seems to be working better than any cooling I've ever had on video card, ever!

But here is a quick update for everyone...
For those of you who need to see a direct comparison, I give you David and Goliath:
(The stock 6800GT heatsink is on the left, and my new all copper Xeon heatsink is on the right)


And here we have the whole family!


Ok, moving on...
Here we have the newest version of the fan shroud. But, again, I cracked the frickin' thing! Maybe if I get motivated I'll try making another, but this is what I'll use for now...


Here's what the board looks like ready to mount the plexi shroud:

[gvblake22]

And here is everything mounted and ready to go!!!
You may notice that the fan seems off center, and it is. That's for a couple reasons:
1) To move the dead spot from the fan off from the center of the heatsink (right above the GPU) so the greatest pressure from the fan blades is over the middle of the heatsink.
2) The chipset on my DFI board is right below the video card, and the fan would hit it if it were over any farther.

[gvblake22]

Here is the card as it is installed in the case; looks like it takes up the FULL 3 slots. If I had a sound card or something in my bottom PCI slot, the fan would not be able to get much air.


I tried to raise the shroud up off the heatsink enough so that it would leave room for hot air to escape out the back of the case:



As for temps so far, I was getting temps 20ºC better than the Zalman when I first got it installed (on idle and load). But I think the ambient temperature was a lot lower. Now temps are only about 10ºC better than the Zalman. I never did even test the stock heatsink though because the card came shipped with the Zalman on there.
But here's the breakdown:
Zalman VF700-AlCu = mid 50ºC idle and 70º load (measured with rthdrbl)
Custom cooling setup = low to mid 40ºC and mid to high 50ºC (measured with rthdrbl)

It's kindof odd because the idle temperatures are not a whole lot lower, but the loat temps are much lower than the Zalman, so I guess that's always good.

I also did not try any overclocking on the Zalman because I was just nervious about the 70º load temperatures. But now that I feel comfortable overclocking, I'll see what this card can do!!!

I still have to make the other smaller component heatsinks as well as paint up the shroud and make it look better. Plus (as you can see from the pictures) the fan sits above the top of the heatsink a few centimeters. So I want to try and move that down closer to the heatsink and see if that helps the temperatures too. I have a feeling the air being moved by the fan is losing a lot of pressure by the time it gets to the base of the heatsink. Plus I still may make a new shroud and try moving the fan over a little bit so it is more centered over the heatsink.

I'm gonna try and move the fan a little closer to the heatsink so the air pressure is a little better coming out of the fan going into the heatsink. Hopefully that helps the temps a little!
But that's all for now. Maybe later this week I will get motivated and make the other component heatsinks, but this will be the last update for now.
Stay tuned for some pics with a little more "color"

EDIT: Sorry about the tiny pics, but photobucket decided that it needed to resize them down to miniature size!

[pwnt by pat]

cool

[threeme2189]

ooooooh very nice!!!

[jcw122]

EDIT: OOPS I guess I read it mid-threading


Wow now this IS an adventure!

I'd actually say it looks great so far, I mean, it's what happens when you mod something to fit a part it's not supposed to fit. I really think it looks good. I can also see the thinking in using the 92mm fan, the RAM sinks, great idea.

I dunno, In my opinion it looks pretty clean. My only question, what's the tape on the button for? so you don't get the HS dirty?

Anyway, is it me or are you nearly done? Good job so far dude.

I'll be excited to see the end product and how it performs, good luck!

[gvblake22]

Yeah, I'm nearly done. The GPU heatsink is completed and will not change from what it is now, but I want to cut up one of the other copper Xeon heatsinks and use it to cool the RAM and the power chips. So there is still work to be done.

I had the tape on the bottom of the heatsink to protect the middle of the base from scratches and dirt while I was working on it.

[jcw122]

Yeah, I'm nearly done. The GPU heatsink is completed and will not change from what it is now, but I want to cut up one of the other copper Xeon heatsinks and use it to cool the RAM and the power chips. So there is still work to be done.

I had the tape on the bottom of the heatsink to protect the middle of the base from scratches and dirt while I was working on it.

Well anyway, looks great, nice work!

[Audioaficionado]

Where did you source those copper 1U Xeon sinks?

[gvblake22]

Where did you source those copper 1U Xeon sinks?

E-bay
They were $4 a piece + outragious e-bay shipping costs. I ended up paying like $24 shipped for all three of them.

[Voodoo Rufus]

How does that fan sound anyway?

[Theorie]

thats a nice heatsink. i'm thinking about upgrading the cooler on my eVGA geforce 7200 soon