Best Silent GPU Cooler

[poup23]

Hi,

I'm presently looking to upgrade my old radeon 9800 pro video card to something like the sapphire X1900GT or a crad in the same range of price and performance. Because my computer is located at 4 feet of my bed, I'd like to have a very silent and efficient cooling on my new video card.

I read about the TT Tide Water cooling solution but I already have the Big Typhoon installed for my CPU and I can't agree with the 16dB they said this fan produce, its certainly more silent than the orignal cooler, but I got some doubt about the silency of the Tide Water, due to that. Can someone give me some feedback about this product. I've already read the review about this product on this site, but I want to have other review from customers.

If I don't go for this product, wich other cooler, fan or liquid could be very silent and efficient?? I got the ZM80D with the optional fan from Zalman for quite a while on my 9800 and it was really silent, but do all the Zalman's products are too??

Thanks

 

[poup23]

I forgot to ask,

I will probably get a Crossfire MB, but I plan to get the second video card later, can I put the Tide Water Plus without having to video card for the moment, or is it totally not recommended??

Thanks

 

[yourmothersanastronaut]

...

The problem with the TT Tide is that it screws over your chances of doing Crossfire/SLI. And it hasn't gotten that many good reviews, particulary in the tubing quality area. Tubing is important for making sure that the coolant gets where it needs to be, which is good if you intend on a functional setup.

Zalman's ZALMAN VF900 – CU is a nearly silent GPU cooler, with a 96 mm fan. It's also made of copper, which is the best-performing heatsink material available. It will also let you upgrade to Crossfire, depending on how much space there is between slots on your motherboard.

Or you could just get a complete liquid cooling system, which is an effective, albeit expensive and complicated, option.

 

[shawnlizzle =]]

the only thing that i would buy form TT is the big typhoon, the rest is mostly junk

 

[poup23]

Thanks for the advice, nice to know that my feelings were good. But I would like to know how much silent is the Zalman VF900-Cu?? Is it as much as the ZM-OP1, the optional fan of the ZM80D-HP?? If so, it will certainly be my first choice.

 

[yourmothersanastronaut]

Well, it won't be quite as silent as that. The one you mentioned is a fanles s heatpipe cooler, so it won't ever make any noise. However, I don't trust any fanless non-liquid cooler (begin the debates on whether or not heatpipes are liquid or not) on anything but RAM, hard drives, or chipsets. The cooler I mentioned will make almost no noise. You won't be able to hear it over your other fans and your hard drive, in a quiet room. Just set the cooler to quiet mode and let it go.

 

[poup23]

The ZM80D-HP is just a heatsink, but I added the optional fan, ZM-OP1, that is completely silent, I never hear it at all, in part because of the big typhoon that is much more noisier.