Aftermarket Cooler - Help!

[KapteinFruit]

Hello guys. I want an aftermarket cooler for my 5870 because it's noisy and I really want the Thermaltake ISGC-V320. I want to switch the fans on it to Noctua fans. It would be so cool because my 5870 would be cooler, I would have Noctua fans to cool my CPU and GPU, and it would be more quiet. But the questions is. Will I be able to have two 5870's in crossfire then because the cooler is fairly thick, but my brother said you might be able to get a longer Crossfire bridge. So can I get that? Thanks for any help.

 

[tinytomlogan]

It actually depends on your board and the pcie layout. You can get a 3/4space bridge but i deffo would not buy anything with a Thermaltake badge on it unless you want lots of people laughing at you and asking is that all your local pc shop had in stock. We recently reviewed the Arctic Cooling heat sink for the 5870 and in VB's own imortal words its nothing short of epic. So take a look at that puppy fella.

Should be fine on yours for tripple slot though with a longer bridge.

 

[KapteinFruit]

It actually depends on your board and the pcie layout. You can get a 3/4space bridge but i deffo would not buy anything with a Thermaltake badge on it unless you want lots of people laughing at you and asking is that all your local pc shop had in stock. We recently reviewed the Arctic Cooling heat sink for the 5870 and in VB's own imortal words its nothing short of epic. So take a look at that puppy fella.

Should be fine on yours for tripple slot though with a longer bridge.

The Thermaltake looks very good IMO and I didn't really like the look of the Artic Cooling heatsink. And what's wrong with Thermaltake? I would not buy a case from them, but their coolers doesn't look too bad. But if the Artic Coolin heatsink can have two 120mm fans on it and it's better then the Thermaltake one I will get that one. But as I said, I do not really like the look of it. The text on the side etc.

Oh, and my motherboard is the EVGA Classified 200. (Which you do not approve of. xD)

You can't change the fans on the Artic Cooling cooler.

 

[Diablo]

The question is why do you need noctuas cooling the GPU. From the review, I'm guessing the AC units are pretty quiet, and having got a couple of AC 80mm fans on one of my 280s, they seem very quiet. They ought to be pretty easy to swap out a pair of 92mm AC units for a pair of 92mm Noctuas, but I doubt the noise would be that different. If you need a dual slot cooler, you are somewhat limited as these tend to be a fair bit louder.

Thermaltake as far as I can tell employs howler monkeys for QC department. Their coolers are pretty poor in general and owning a TT product is an excercise in upgrading to something better after about 3 months of living with some pretty glaring design faults and/or poor quality workmanship.

The 120mm requirement means that one of the crossfire bridges is obscured, and the heatsink on the chip at the front makes me think it will fall off at any time.

 

[KapteinFruit]

The question is why do you need noctuas cooling the GPU. From the review, I'm guessing the AC units are pretty quiet, and having got a couple of AC 80mm fans on one of my 280s, they seem very quiet. They ought to be pretty easy to swap out a pair of 92mm AC units for a pair of 92mm Noctuas, but I doubt the noise would be that different. If you need a dual slot cooler, you are somewhat limited as these tend to be a fair bit louder.

Thermaltake as far as I can tell employs howler monkeys for QC department. Their coolers are pretty poor in general and owning a TT product is an excercise in upgrading to something better after about 3 months of living with some pretty glaring design faults and/or poor quality workmanship.

The 120mm requirement means that one of the crossfire bridges is obscured, and the heatsink on the chip at the front makes me think it will fall off at any time.

Maybe you are right. The reason I want to have Noctua fans on my GPU cooler is because I'm huge Noctua fan. I love Noctua. And I don't really like the look of the Artic Cooling cooler. The text on the side is plain ugly. I like my PC to look good as well. :S

 

[AMDFTW]

sometimes its hard to balance between looks and performance,but the AC cooler works very well extremly well infact and well thats what you want a aftermarket cooler to do be cooler and quiter

and it is

 

[tinytomlogan]

Its the best GPU cooler we have had in for the 5870 yet tbh. And the text on the side is a sticker...... take it off

 

[KING_OF_SAND]

go to this site, they make the BEST VGA coolers money can possible buy without going water. http://www.arctic-cooling.com/catalog/index.php

 

[tinytomlogan]

go to this site, they make the BEST VGA coolers money can possible buy without going water. http://www.arctic-cooling.com/catalog/index.php

HAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAA someone didnt read the replies first

 

[KapteinFruit]

Its the best GPU cooler we have had in for the 5870 yet tbh. And the text on the side is a sticker...... take it off

Ok, I will get the Artic Cooling one then. But I still do not really like the looks of it and my brother agrees with me. (Like that matters. LOL.)

But I will choose performance over looks. Thanks for the help everyone.

 

[SiN]

It actually depends on your board and the pcie layout. You can get a 3/4space bridge but i deffo would not buy anything with a Thermaltake badge on it unless you want lots of people laughing at you and asking is that all your local pc shop had in stock. We recently reviewed the Arctic Cooling heat sink for the 5870 and in VB's own imortal words its nothing short of epic. So take a look at that puppy fella.

Should be fine on yours for tripple slot though with a longer bridge.

Ther are only a few semi-decent Thermaltake products that I would think about buying, all of them being their higher-end PSU's.

 

[KING_OF_SAND]

HAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAA someone didnt read the replies first

i have REALLY short term memory loss LOL. no but really i did see the other AC suggestions i just wanted to make another so there is another person that can say they are the best. also i offered the website

 

[SiN]

Just a quick question, do you really need a better cooler, the 5xxx cards run really cool anyways.

I have never had any issues with any cards, I have never felt the need to buy an aftermarket cooler. I have had "blower-style" cards and I can still overclock as much as I like, even with voltage-control.

 

[AMDFTW]

they can never be to cool man

 

[SiN]

they can never be to cool man

Some TLC to the cards made a world of difference to me.

I replaced the stock thermal pads and TIM on my old GTX 280 and the bugger idled at 38C and loaded at 56C during a long, hardcore gaming session. That was overclocked too, without over-volting, but nonetheless. As long as you have half-decent airflow (used the card in a NZXT Guardian 921) and care for the cards, you can make them run cool (and some tolerance for some noise too, headphones help).

I bought that 280 for $75 and sold it for $220, for some reason, I didn't like it all too much. So I bought my Hawk.