Cooling a 4850

cerebus

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So I love my 4850 - and I just got hold of a spare Zalman VF900CU cooler which I'm planning to replace the stock cooler with. The only thing is it doesn't have enough ram sinks to cover the far end mosfets. I saw that Asus brought out a 4850 with the end parts left naked so I'm wondering if it's really absolutely necessary to cover them - I'm not planning to overclock it right now and I think my airflow is adequate.

Also I just spoke to someone at Matrix who told me that those cards are meant to run at an optimal (hot) temp, and if you lower it too much it won't run properly. He suggested to rather add an internal fan pointed onto the card. Right now it's about 70c at 40% fan speed on idle - to me that's a bit high for comfort which is why I'm adding the cooler. Is he right about that?
 
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So I love my 4850 - and I just got hold of a spare Zalman VF900CU cooler which I'm planning to replace the stock cooler with. The only thing is it doesn't have enough ram sinks to cover the far end mosfets. I saw that Asus brought out a 4850 with the end parts left naked so I'm wondering if it's really absolutely necessary to cover them - I'm not planning to overclock it right now and I think my airflow is adequate.

Also I just spoke to someone at Matrix who told me that those cards are meant to run at an optimal (hot) temp, and if you lower it too much it won't run properly. Right now it's about 70c at 40% fan speed on idle - to me that's a bit high for comfort which is why I'm adding the cooler. Is he right about that?

Rubbish, they will run perfectly well at low temps, give that guy a smack for spreading bull@#$%.

And YES you'll want to find sinks for the pwm circuitry, even if you don't overclock.
 
He's right though, at -100 degrees I'm sure it wont run too well :p

But then again not much things will run at that temp...maybe except the new phenom II's
 
He's right though, at -100 degrees I'm sure it wont run too well :p

But then again not much things will run at that temp...maybe except the new phenom II's

LN2 can take a P4 to near -200degs fyi.. there's nothing special about the Phenom II's in this respect, it's just another cpu..
You could put LN2 on the 4850 too if you really wanted too..
 
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hahaha that people @ matrix is really a bunch of idiot . . . had my dealings with them in the past.

i also stared to stress about my GPU's HOT HOT temps, now i use the CCC manual fan speed. mine runs 52'C at 50% speed on idle, when i am gaming i run it at 100% and under a load for about a hour my GPU reach a max of 71'C
 
I have a 4850 with the Zalman cooler, OC properly, never goes over 52, idles at 32, incl gpu, ram and shader diodes. I also do not have sinks on the last 4 little modules at the end, but I have touched them when running hard, they do not get warm, so I don't think I'd worry too much.
 
Now I've found out that the ram heatsinks don't stick properly any longer - what kind of tape should I use for them?
 
hahaha that people @ matrix is really a bunch of idiot . . . had my dealings with them in the past.

i also stared to stress about my GPU's HOT HOT temps, now i use the CCC manual fan speed. mine runs 52'C at 50% speed on idle, when i am gaming i run it at 100% and under a load for about a hour my GPU reach a max of 71'C

..lest ye be judged..
 
Oh yeah..that would be the stuff that nobody in Somerset West sells.

*mutter*
 
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