Non-Reference ATI Radeon 6970 PCB and Compatible After-Market Coolers

[Jade Topaz]

Hello everyone,

It has been quite a let down so to speak when I first initally purchased my XFX ATI Radeon HD 6970 to realise through the information of the internet of the silent 1.1 revision to their PCB as initally when I first had installed it I realised the lack of the bios switch, the backplate and AMD logo on the PCI Express connector. What essentially I am to ask is of your assistance with this matter on what options do you personally think I have for an aftermarket cooler?

The reason for saying such a thing is indefinately for my concerns of noise levels as the stock blower fan is so very loud even at temperate speeds that I've set it to match my Noctua NF-P14FLX on my side panel (which is quite loud) by ear via the AMD Vision Centre application (Which I probablly have deducted the source of such loudness with the fan being the actual grill not being able to allow suction of much airflow). So really this is what ideally I would do with my next upgrade of my computer.

I definately want to stay with the M-ATX form factor, but would like to upgrade my computer case (being that I have a stock Acer Aspire case I had from my original retail computer) and getting either a Fractal Arc Mini or an NZXT Vulcan (I haven't really decided if I want to use a Noctua NHD-14 so the only restrictment of the Vulcan would be it's lack of width clerance (probablly with a fan controller to tune the noise levels to my liking while still cooling such a cooler). I also would upgrade my motherboard and processor probablly to a Asus Rampage V Gene with a Intel 1155 i7 2600k or i5 2500k, and hopefully get a cooler for said video card that we are discussing.

I will now display a photo of Reference PCB of the ATI Radeon HD 6970 and then the Non-Reference XFX V1.1 revision.

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjwmJQHvp-0[/media]

What I had in mind was trying to use a Thermalright Shaman After-market cooler on my video card, it seems from thisvideo to having need for ownly the 4 holes surrounding the GPU itself. The Artic Acellero Extreme series being probablly my second option. Though my main concern being what VRM heatsinks I could use or I would probablly have to use Thermal pads. Now I know I definately with these capacitor revisions probablly won't get a good overclock though in the future with such a motherboard I mentioned, I may use it to grind more life out of it if I must, but definately noise and temperature is what I'm concerned about. I just want a quiet, cool and stable video card with such an option.

Thank you for your time, good day.

 

[Jade Topaz]

And of course I posted it in the wrong subject area, I am sorry it was mean't to be in Video Cards.

 

[Master&Puppet]

I'm not familiar with the 6970 in particular but I would highly recommend MSI AfterBurner as a program for controlling your gpu fan speed. You can create a fan profile which the card will spin too. Take a look at pg 19 of their manual (which is pg 20 of the PDF):

http://event.msi.com...er%20Manual.pdf

You could accept higher temps for less noise in the meantime. I'm going to have a think about the aftermarket cooler for a bit and will post back.

Judging by the video you posted that cooler would be fine. Although I don't think it would be as good as a full vga block.

I came across another thread with exactly the same issue.

http://hardforum.com...d.php?t=1601246

He tested a reference design watercooling block on his v1.1 and it did not fit and was not usable. I ran your card through coolingconfigurator.com and EK have produced a v2 waterblock which would fit your card if you wanted to put it under water (but judging by your post you wouldn't want to go to that expense for it which is fair enough).

My perspective so far is that no reference aftermarket cooler will fit your card. I have yet to come across a revision which will suit it but the fact that EK created a waterblock which does fit suggests that other companies may have too and that deserves more searching.

 

[Jade Topaz]

Thank you for your perspective, I do already have MSI Afterburner though I usually do not run it in the background as I very much only run the essential drivers and AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 2012 though time and time again I use MSI Afterburner for temperature readings if I'm not already using Hardware Monitor or the main use of seeing framerates in video games (despite some compatibility issues). So as far as fan control, the principle of the problem would be I need a new case before I tune down the fan as I have the reference cooler tuned to the noise level of the already loud Noctua NF-14FLX which I had previously mentioned. But I was running some benchmarks in Unigine Heaven (despite the obvious bottlenecking cpu which is a AMD Athlon x3 440 which I deem to replace) I got to a peak temperature of 92 at 50% fan speeds where it usually resides.

But as far as controling fan speeds with MSI Afterburner, I prefer the AMD software solution as it isn't nessecarily in the background. Mind you that the Noctua fan I use is running at 12 volts through a molex as my motherboard has no fan inputs. But I definately would like to switch it to exhaust given the sheer amount of dust it has collected, the problem though is the anti-vibration gromets aren't coming out of the side panel holes I attached it to.

 

[Master&Puppet]

Cool, looks like you've got the handle on the software. How's the search for coolers going?

 

[Jade Topaz]

Well I mean the Thermalright Shaman was ideally what I thought would only fit, I'm just wondering what I want to do with VRM heatsinks I suppose. Also would like to wonder if the back being any diffrent from the front could effect the mounting process. I mean I have had it for 4 months and it has been used on fairly moderate video games such as Tribes: Ascend, The Witcher: Enhanced Edition, Dead Space and Fable: The Lost Chapters and a tad of Team Fortress 2 and at 1440x900 it can run at it's highest settings. But with the possibility of getting a Asus VW266H at a resolution of 1920x1200 I don't know if such performance will be the same, in the case I could just turn down tesilation or other fitering.

I originally bought an XFX video card for it's warranty, though now that I think of it I would probablly be better off with a Gigabyte Windforce..

 

[Master&Puppet]

Yea I've had an xfx card before. The warranty is nice but xfx cards always seem to be loud!