Grrr!!! Now I dunnit -- upgraded my PC again...

[Vin DSL]

LoL! Well, I couldn't leave well enough alone...

I don't know if you 'old-timers' remember, but I built a new computer a couple of years ago, and I was asking about the video card, here in the threads.

I ended up going with a ATI 9200SE, at the time, but never felt good about it. However, the price was right -- 79 bones minus rebates -- so...

Everything was fine, until my Sammy monitor started crapping out on me. I do a LOT of coding, and it got to the point where I couldn't tell the difference between a ( and a [ without blowing it up to a size 16 font, so I decided to buy a couple of Dell 1907FPs last month.

After playing around with them for a week, bedding them in and getting them to look 'right', I started thinking about my lowly ATI 9200SE graphic card. When I built this machine, the hottest card out there was the ATI 9800 Pro, but they cost $400 at the time. Now, I discovered, I could get one on eBay for $75 -- so I went for it.

After a week or so of searching, I found a nut in West Virginia with a pristine 9800 Pro, like new, with the original box, original sales slip, and so forth -- so I bought it.

As fate would have it, I lucked out, and got an ATI 9800 Pro that looks like I just went down to Fry's Electronics and purchased it new.

The only problem, so far, is this thing pulls so much power (probably 120 watts) that my 300 watt battery backup is now useless. Oh, well, I guess that's the price of doing business, yes? That's nothing money won't take care of... a no brainer...

Now, my reason for writing this...

Having done some research, I realize that the Achilles tendon of these 'hot' graphic cards is their cooling systems. In the case of the ATI 9800 Pro, what usually happens is the fan stops working, after about three years of use, and you don't realize it until the GPU fries. The card I bought is two years old, so I have a little time to play around, but I want to get a good cooling system installed, before the stock fan gives out and takes 'Big Red' with it...

Having read everything I could find, for the last week or so -- and having changed my mind at least 10 times -- I think the way to go (the last couple of days) is the Masscool/Sytrin VF1 Plus.

This is a fairly new product, and you have probably never heard of them, but everyone that has tested the VF1 has gone absolutely goo-goo over it.

Anyway, once again, I bring my plight before you -- the JagPC client base. I know there has to be some gamers and overclockers out there that have some experience in this VGA cooler arena.

I know my *new* ATI 9800 Pro isn't the latest and greatest card -- it's basically four year-old technology, albeit one of the best cards ever made -- but, I didn't want to spend over $100 on a AGP graphic card, and it seemed like the logical choice, in order to round out my current system -- sort of a '55 Chevy hotrod -- and allow me a couple of more years usage before building a whole new system... And, this VGA cooler should work on whatever I buy in the foreseeable future!

Any thoughts on this?

If not, I'm going for it... again...

[JPC-Greg]

If the card was new in box then you probably have some years before anything goes on it, why even bother upgrading the coolor unless its used? I have an iold 9600 pro sitting somewhere that worked fine for years in a system with like one case fan, next to no cooling. Not saying the fan wont stop on you ever but in a few years when it does, your several year old sub $100 video card will have long since served its purpose.

[Jaded]

I agree with Jag.

I have been running an ATI 8500 DV with stock cooling for almost 4 years. The new ps should take care of your problems. I also built a system for some friends who don't use much in the way of a/c and their card is still going strong. The problems usually occur during o/c attempts.

[Vin DSL]

Well, this IS a used card. The guy I bought it from said he had been using it for 2 years (2 years and a month according to the sales receipt). He said he had never overclocked it, messed with the voltage, et cetera, e.g. never abused it -- and I believe him. Really, this thing LOOKS like new -- no discoloring around the components and so forth, and so on.

I'm not a gamer, but I decided I'd better test its' capabilities last night, after I posted this thread. I downloaded the Quake 4 Demo and ran it for a few hours in high-quality 1280x1024 mode.

OMG!!! My 300 watt battery backup voltage meter was pegged in the red the whole time (serious overload), and the fan on my CPU (not video card) sounded like it was going to blow up. So, I can only imagine how hot the video card GPU was getting...

Evidently running games is a whole new enchilada -- stresses your hardware to the max!

I think third-part cooling is going to be a must, especially if I continue playing games. I was just wondering if there was a better solution out there than the Sytrin VF1 Plus. Hell, I might even have to invest in a better CPU cooling system. The reference fan that came with my (boxed) Intel P4 was having a hard time keeping up, from the sound of it...

Thanks for the replies!

[Vin DSL]

I might mention... prevailing logic says, the 'old' VGA cooling systems haven't kept pace with the 'newer' video cards.

For instance, an extremely popular, and easy to install, VGA cooler has been the Zalman VF700-Cu. Everyone raved about the VF700, but it's old skool, and Zalman has now come up with a suitable upgrade, the VF900-Cu.

If the argument is correct, and I (admittedly) don't have a 'newer' type card, either one of these cooling systems should work fine also, yes?

Heh! Am I overthinking this?

[Smo]

A year or so ago my computer started freezeing up on me, it turned out that it was the fan of my nVidia FX 5600 that was crapping out. I couldn't find a replacement fan anywhere so I bought myself a bigarse case fan for 5 euros, and mounted it my graphics card.

It works perfectly now, and in addition the computer is alot more silent with a slower gpu fan

Picture of fans --> http://killboredom.com/usr/smo/compCrap(800).jpg


This spring my powersupply crapped out on me and the computer got up to 97 degrees celcius before shutting down. Luckily all the components survived. The clerk at the computer store told me that usually the motherboard can't handle such heat.

[Vin DSL]

A year or so ago my computer started freezeing up on me, it turned out that it was the fan of my nVidia FX 5600...

This spring my powersupply crapped out on me and the computer got up to 97 degrees celcius before shutting down. Luckily all the components survived...

This is what I love about the Internet... Smo from Finland... and his heat problems...

Thank you, Smo, for your comments! I live in Arizona, USA -- one of the hottest places on Earth. It is already unbearably hot here, and summer, so called, is still a month or two away. It was 103 deg. Fahrenheit here today, and that's nothing, believe me! In Finland, ppl would probably be dropping dead from this 'heat', but this is just the start of it in Arizona.

So, maybe you can see why I am so paranoid about my 'hot' equipment, and why I want to protect it from this hellish enviroment...

[Vin DSL]

Here's an insight for you -- at least for me...

Having read VGA cooling system reviews Ad Nauseum, for the last week or two, I can tell you that 'they' -- the gamers and OTC'ers -- refer to 'load' and 'idle' temps in their reviews. What does this mean in the real world?

'Idle', so called, refers to average usage. For instance, me doing coding, reading email, posting replies on JagPC, and so forth. All this stuff doesn't affect my 'hot rod' in the least. It's basically sitting 'idle' no matter what I do! To 'gamers/OTC' this means nothing!

"Load' refers to gaming -- pure and simple! What else could it possibly mean? And to 'them', this means everything!

I wish these gaming/OTC sites would refer to 'normal' and 'gaming' temps, but who am I to correct 'them'? To 'them', 'gaming' is probably 'normal'...

And, so it goes... and this is why I'm having a hard time cutting though all the B.S.

Either I need third-party cooling, or I don't!

This is probably the totally wrong place to bring all this up, since most ppl here are 'normal', and only use a 'hot' computer to avoid waiting for their web site[s] and ancillary programs to load, but I figured it was worth a shot.

I should probably be bringing this up at AnandTech...

At this point, I'm thinking about implementing a 'review module' on my production site, dedicated to cooling ATI Radeon 9800 xxx graphic cards, which there has to be millions of, floating around.

Nobody else seems to care about 'them', except in a nostalgic sense -- like, "Remember those good 'ol 9800's (from 2 years ago)? Ah, those were the days, weren't they?" -- so, I could probably become the 'Lord of The Flies', so to speak...

[Smo]

Thank you, Smo, for your comments! I live in Arizona, USA -- one of the hottest places on Earth. It is already unbearably hot here, and summer, so called, is still a month or two away. It was 103 deg. Fahrenheit here today, and that's nothing, believe me! In Finland, ppl would probably be dropping dead from this 'heat', but this is just the start of it in Arizona.

My wife is from Las Cruces NM, and she's got family in Phoenix, so I do know how nice and warm it get's there.
I'm not too find of sub-zero temperatures... need to get out of this frozen wasteland

[edit]
Oh and once the cooling breaks on your comp it hardly matters where you are. the results are more or less the same.

[mattsiegman]

Zalman is good from what I've heard.

[Vin DSL]

Update:

LoL! I noticed my CPU fan was huffing and puffing again this afternoon, even though I wasn't pushing any triangles, so I decided to get my flashlight and look inside the cave, pun intended...

OMG!!! Time to do some spring cleaning!!!

I couldn't see a single fin on the CPU sink...

Pics are always in order, right? Here are some before n' after snaps.

Note the underwhelming stock cooling system on my '$400' video card!

[Vin DSL]

Zalman is good from what I've heard.

Yeah, I've heard the same thing, Matt. They have been on the scene for a long time, and lots of ppl like them. However, their solutions look a little aged these days.

The more I look around, the more comfortable I'm getting with a couple of these coolers. And all the others are looking pretty ho-hum, including Zalman, et al.

Basically, I've boiled it down to the Sytrin VF1 Plus, or the ThermalRight V-1 Ultra, which I didn't mention earlier.

The Sytrin VF1 Plus would probably work best, but it looks pants, you know?

The ThermalRight V-1 Ultra would probably work almost as good, and it's sexxxy!

From the link[s] above:

I don't know about anyone else, but after running these tests I was left speechless. I have always considered Thermalright heatsinks as the best in the business, and here it just got trounced by the Sytrin VF1.

For the maximum overclock run I even replaced the Thermalright's stock fan with 2 high-speed 80mm fans pushing 150cfm total, and even so the Sytrin easily outperformed it in both temperatures and maximum overclock...

It's not often that a product this good comes across my desk, and IMO any cooling device that can make the competition look so inefficient, especially when that competitor is Thermalright, deserves an award. If we used a 1-10 rating scale here at OCIA.net I'd give the VF1 an 11.

What do you think about these two coolers?

[mattsiegman]

the sytrin looks good, copper is good for transfer of just about everything (heat, electricity, etc ). I don't remember, but I believe ThermalTake is ok.

I don't know what exactly you're looking for, heatsink & fan, just a fan, or maybe liquid cooling ( )

take a look at these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835116017
water cooling, you should only invest in this if you want gaming power

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835192007
This one looks kind of cool, has a variable speed control

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835118212
Just a fan

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835192006
Fan, heatsink, blue LED

The reviews on newegg are pretty good as far as truth/reliability, except for processor reviews. They get hit by Intel/AMD fanboys like no other

Also, make sure that the fans, heatsinks, etc will actually fit in your PC. that one that takes a card slot should fit, 'cause I saw 3 or four empty slots in those pics above (major difference from cleaning, good job)

[Vin DSL]

Thanks! I'll check those out...

BTW, speaking of 'blue LEDs' -- my case has a clear side panel, with a 'blue LED' fan mounted in the center. When I was blowing out this fan, the LEDs came on when the fan spun.

I always assumed these LEDs were hooked into the power cord, however, they are evidently powered by fan blade movement. That's kinds cool! That way, if the fan burns out and quits spinning, the LEDs go out...

I wonder how many 'blue LED' fans do this?!?!?

Here's a visual for you...

[ehost]

actually the best thing you can do is get a better case that has good air flow, the fan on the gpu will work allot better in cooler air, I had a similar problem. I have a 2-3 year old sony vaio that came with a ati 9200, in December i got a nvidia 6200oc it pulled allot more power from the 300 watt power supply in the vaio and ran allot warmer even with a gpu fan. so i got a new case that has fantastic airflow and haven't had any graphics card over heating problems since.

The case I bought was the Aspire X-plorer with a 420w power supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811144099