mbreitba

I've got two video cards in my system, an 8800GT (Zotac OC) and an PNY 8500GT. The 8800GT spins itself down fairly slow when doing desktop work, so it's decent enough to deal with, but the 8500GT doesn't appear to have fan speed controls, and it's quite loud when just doing desktop work.

I've tried just disconnecting the fan, and it gets too hot to be able to simply do that. I'm looking for some recommendations for passively cooling this GPU, and lowering my system noise.

FYI - this is going into an Asus Maximus Formula, in the second slot, in an Antec 900 case. I've got about one expansion slot worth of room below it before it runs into the power supply.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Arjy

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835118029


Only good one I know of. Make sure you're airflow will be good though. Passive cooling is risky business.

mbreitba

Well, it's only an 8500GT, so it really isn't putting out that much heat. It sits at about 53 degrees C idle, with it's _tiny_ heatsink/fan on it. If I unplug the fan, it goes to about 80. I'm really just looking for something that's significantly quieter than what's on there right now. It doesn't necessarily have to be passive, but it does have to be quiet.

The Zaleman looks pretty decent, but it's a little big. I've got about 46mm from the gpu die to my power supply, and 8mm isn't a whole lot of room to work with.

Any additional suggestions?

Arjy

Well, That model actually goes around the back of the card, which will mean you'll have plenty of space. Since you're passively cooling, I would not risk going for a smaller heatsink, but if you feel its overkill than I'm looking around for something else to help you out. Note how I haven't even suggested a Thermalright for you :P

namtlade

One question, why do you need both cards? They won't work in SLI together and you can run 2 monitors off one 8800gt so why are you still using it?

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mbreitba

I'm currently running 3 monitors, planning on upgrading to 4 in the very near future.

mbreitba

Alright, I didn't realize it went around the back of the card vs the front of the card, but then I run into the issue of "what if I do decide to upgrade the cooling on my 8800GT". My 8800 GT is a single slot solution right now, and while it's fine in windows with the fan spun way down, when playing Crysis or Bioshock, it does heat up. While I don't usually care about the sound while I'm playing games as I've got my headphones on, it is something that I've considered, and the cooling solutions for the 8800GT are anything but small (i really like the Accelero S1 rev2, but it's a beast).

Arjy

Ah, thats quite a predicament there :P


You've already tried to turn the fan speed down using rivatuner?

mbreitba

Yeah, it's not responding. It's only a two wire fan, so I'm thinking that it may be a fixed fan speed that simply won't respond to speed changes. I've been half tempted to just build a circut to cut the voltage in half, and let it run like that. For all intents and purposes, that'd do exactly what I want it to do. Cut the noise, not increase the space taken up in my case.

Arjy

Sounds like a good idea to me. Go for it.