OK all you hd3870X2 owners anybody mod or change fans

[bravo29]

Ok anybody find some other means of cooling these yet?? Just checking if anybody found or in the process of making something.

I have 2 of those PCI dual fans blowing on mine. One on top and one on the bottom.

 

[Shadow703793]

The easiest way to improve the temps are by replacing the factory thermal grease/pads with some AS5. As far as I am concerned there are no after market coolers for these yet.

 

[jnava121]

Pee on the mortar tube that should cool it down.....

 

[Aragorn]

the GeCube card uses a different cooler, perhaps they or Zalman (who seems to make it) can sell you one.

 

[bash007]

Air cooling:

Watercooling:

By the looks of the second picture, you may be able to use something like two VF700s or VF900s.
The Gecube cooler in the first picture looks similar to a TT DuOrb, but that (the DuOrb) can only serve as a cooler for one of the GPUs, so you'll need two, but they will not fit, obviously.
Don't know if they sell those Gecube coolers by themselves, though. Probably not.

EDIT:
On second thought, the first pic might not even be a 3870x2. It looks too short, and the placement of the PCI-E connectors is not the same as the reference card.
Although, they did say it actually was on the website I found it at.

 

[Aragorn]

That first image is the GeCube 3870x2. I think the reason it looks too short is that the long reference card was primarily a cooling requierment for the stock cooler. The more efficient cooler needs less space (and makes less noise) but it doesn't blow the air out of the case.

 

[STS]

When do non-reference cards usually hit the market? I kinda got my heart set on that GeCube but if it's going to be months I might go another way.

 

[Guest]

Actually the gecube cooler is different for this card since it is a completley different board. its alot shorter than the reference HD3870 X2. one easy mod for this is to take of the plasic shield and take of the heatsinks and apply AS 5, then rotate the heat sinks so that the fins are running perpendicular to the length of the card.. and you can insert ziptie clips inbetween the back bracket to add more pressure. then you can adapt fans to each of the heatsinks and you can even make a bracket for the fans so you get the same look as the asus one.

http://forums.ebuyer.com/showthread.php?p=317109

i will post pictures and a guide on how to do it when i get my second one.
the zipties trick alone decreases temps down a full 3 degrees.
then when added artic silver 5 it dropped another 5 derees
but when i saw this guy on the link above i just had the perfect idea.
so i copied him and added two 92mm artic cooling fans and it dropped my temps another 9 degrees
but after a while my full load temps went down from the stock 80 and above to 53 on full load with stock voltages
but over clocked i was able to keep it under 65 no problem.

the only draw back is the fact that it can take upto three slots so this means when i get my second card and perform the same mod it will be almost touching my powersupply.

 

[jimmysmitty]

I always thought that a 3870 used the same board as a 2900 so any coolers that worked on it should work on those as well.

 

[firebird]

I did a little modification to mine. Actually, it took about 2 days, LOL.

http://www.flikr.com/photos/maudite

I get max temps of 73 degrees now, with no manual intervention for the fan speed and a lot less noise.