What do you guys think about this cooling setup for my 4850?

ahslan

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Aug 23, 2007
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So Ive always had trouble cooling my 4850, and now im down to buying an aftermaket cooler for it...(my case has pretty decent airflow and i also have a pci slot cooler right below the 4850)...I want to buy something cheap especially since I only spent $400 building my computer

The past couple of days Ive been doing some research and found out that the mounting holes on the 4850 are about 75.4mm diagonally...so, I think imma pull the trigger and purchase one of these coolers: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=270415339166
I want to get that one because, 1. its cheap, and 2. the diagonal distance can be adjusted to exactly fit any cooler that has a diagonal of 55mm to 80mm...along with the cooler, I also plan on buying 2 sets of these heatsinks for the vga ram chips and the mosfets/vrms http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=370216102518

Please let me know what you guys think...thx
 

xc0mmiex

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hmmm, i have the same one and i never had problems.... 80C at idle 85 load (20% and 40% fan speed respectively)... thoese are the normal temps for the card
 

xc0mmiex

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oh yeh, sometimes they screw up really bad with that kind of stuff at the factory (make sure to clean off any of the old thermal compound)... doesn't hurt to try since you will have to do it anyway with the new one
 

caoder

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it seems slightly under powered vs some of the factory coolers offered for the card.. so... i'm guessing you should try to find something a bit more aggressive... and i have a 4870 w/ stock reference and no heat issues =o 80-85 at load
 

ahslan

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well I forgot to post back here...its been a couple of days since Ive put on new thermal paste on my video card...and it seems like it didnt help at all...in fact...it might be running a little hotter than before now...i just dont understand....i am so frustrated right now...I definitely need to get a new heatsink for this card...yesterday my computer shut off while playing crysis wars (noticed the card was going up to 115C)...
 

ahslan

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Well i feel like a dumbass...apparently when i cleaned the heatsink with my compressed air can, it didnt actually do a good job...after taking out the video card and poking around with a mechanical pencil, I found that there was a thick layer of dust that prevented any air from flowing throughout the heatsink...I had to manually pick it out....after doing this and putting the card back into the case, the card immediately ran 20C cooler!!!! now i can actually play crysis, with temps in the low 80s and with my fan at 60%...before i had the fan at 100% and the card would still overheat! this is great! i guess the combination of replacing the thermal paste and removing that dust barrier did the trick...now im wondering if i actually need to upgrade the heatsink now that i solved my crashing problems...I already bought heatsinks for the ram/mosfets...
 

ahslan

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ya....my card is finally stable...but im still sorta interested in getting an aftermarket cooler, but that'll be to just OC the card...and I'm looking for a cheap solution...dont like the idea of paying $50 for a cooler...