Looking for Aftermarket Cooler Recommendation

[omniscientonus]

I'm looking for an aftermarket cooler to put on my VGA XFX HD-687X-CNFC 2G R (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150563)

I tried looking it up on google but it was hard to figure out whether or not certain ones would fit on my card or not, and for every person who said everything went great, there was another who said it didn't fit at all. I'm not all that tech savvy, but I do purchase and build all of my own PC's including things like aftermarket coolers for the CPU. This is just my first time dealing with a GPU cooler.

I'm not too worried about temps as the stock fan takes care of it enough (running 45C idle and 75-80C under load).

The only reason I am even bothering with the aftermarket one is because this fan is starting to die out on me. It stopped spinning yesterday, and it kicked back on again today. Don't want to wait for it to die out again.

I cleaned the card (and the rest of my PC while I was at it) yesterday, but it didn't make any difference (wasn't that dirty to begin with).

Can anyone recommend a decent cooler for me? I'd like to stick below $60, but I'm a sucker for quality so I can go up to $100 (any more and I feel like I might as well just upgrade the card to a Radeon HD 7850 2 GB).

I'm looking for easy installation first, cooling next and quiet last (my rig is fairly noisy because I don't mind it).

 

[ilysaml]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186048

 

[coozie7]

Are you sure it's out of warranty?
This is n't perhaps as good as the Arctic, but it does n't require you to glue the VRM/RAM heatsinks into place (with epoxy) either:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835426026

 

[omniscientonus]

@ilysaml: That was the cooler I saw recommended the most, but it also sounds difficult to install based on all of the feedback. This is basically what got me to put this question up here. This one seems advanced and I've never done it before. Seems doable, but sounds like it might be a headache.... ?

@coozie7: The first review on Newegg for that cooler specifically says "Does not fit an XFX Radeon HD 6870"?

Also, I bought the card on neweeg back on 1/8/2012, so I don't know if it's out of warranty or not, but I don't like the idea of having to wait to send the card in for RMA. I don't have any suitable backup at the moment, so I would have to go without a computer for awhile. Seeing as that's pretty much all I do, I'd rather pay the $50 to not wait.

 

[coozie7]

Based my suggestion on this review:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/coolers/display/gelid-icy-vision_3.html

Perhaps the reviewer on Newegg had a non reference card.

Well, the card's well under a year old and most warranties exceed that by a long way and XFX have good customer service so I'd really advise you to go computer cold turkey and RMA it.

 

[JKatwyopc]

That Video card does not follow the standard layout of the AMD Radeon HD 6870 as shown here: http://koolance.com/image/content_pages/product_help/video_card_pcb_layouts/pcb_amd_radeon_hd6870_reference.jpg
Please have a look at the back side of the board as shown on Newegg (the page you linked) and you will see that there are not as many mounting holes and they are all in the wrong places. You will have to find a universal GPU cooler that can be adjusted to fit.

 

[omniscientonus]

Any recommendations?

 

[ilysaml]

He doesn't have to be mounting to all the holes, he'll just be mainly using the 4 holes around the GPU. The cooler will definitely fit on the card, just a little bit taller.

 

[omniscientonus]

I ended up contacting XFX's customer support and they are supposed to be sending me a new cooler to attach to the card myself.

Although, they took a full week to even respond to me, and now I sent a reply back letting them know that I'm OK with just installing the cooler myself, so I'm expecting another week before they even get ready to ship it.

Hopefully this goes well...

Thanks guys!

 

[omniscientonus]

Best answer selected by omniscientonus.