Let me get this right.
You looked at the 7800GT and saw the massive fan, then went back to the 7900GT and saw that little thingy working as a fan, and now you're wondering if you should get a bigger one. First of all, do you even have the card yet? Are you running it at really high Temps that are pushing you to buy an aftermarket fan?
As far as I know, the 7900GT series should generate lesser heat than the 7800GT (Even with the smaller fan).
VF700CU has a hardware wire change you can use to adjust fan speed. Even at highest though, it's next to impossible to hear.Artic cooling Accelero X1, New sherrif in town. The NV silencer is dead, This new shark is cooler, gpu controlled, fan speeds for 2d mode and 3d mode can be changed in rivatuner. its smaller, cools alot better and should fit the 7900GT no problem. I should have my 7900 gt by wenesday and ill get a artic cooling accelero X1 to test. Just google it to get reviews. Way quieter than the vf700, cools better, and the fan adjusts to 3d mode, and 2d mode. Vf700 runs at only 1 mode all the time.
sik in all honesty i think heatsinks (to a certain degree) on memory are worthless. heatspreaders on my ram, which runs extremely hot, really did hinder the performance of the vantec tornado right above them. however, on VGA ram, I think it could certainly help to have a heatsink on the ram to give it more surface area to cool. the vf700 does have passive heatsinks, yes, but the 80mm fan cooling the core also can reach out to hit the sinks (if you look at the design you'll see that) as well as the rest of the card. if you really want to find out what timing your VGA ram has, you might want to figure out what bios it has first and see what you can dig up on that.Does the Zalman cooler actively cools the ram on the 7900GT?
I don't understand why such high clocked ram on the 7900GT (XFX clocks their's upto 825Mhz on the xxx version) doesn't require a heatsink. That ram must get very hot!! and should be harder to overclock without extra cooling (but doesn't seems to be the case in a review i read of the XFX 7900GT xxx version which doesn't mention it as an issue).
Can someone please explain why such high clocked ram doesn't require active cooling or heatsinks??
I have a Asus EN7800GTX TOP which comes with the Artic Silencer cooler preinstalled and is factory overclocked to 486/1350 (from 430/1200) and is inaudible (very happy with it). But even with that huge heatsink I don't think I can go much beyond 1400 (i.e. 700Mhz) on the memory without getting artifacts. I know that some silicon clocks better then other, and a better timing on a piece of silicon, such as 1.2ns rated part would be faster then a 1.4ns part, but doesn't a faster part require passive or active cooling?? or is it just a myth like the recent debate over heatspreads used by Corsair and OCZ.
I also live in a very hot climate, i.e., in summers the temperatures can rise to 50C/122F, so a good cooler is also very much needed throughout summer from letting the parts from overheating and ultimately dieing.
Thanks.
P.s' only have experience with the Artic coolers, so would vote for them over Zalman and specially if Zalman doesn't actively/passively cools the ram modules.
P.s' 2 - Does anyone know whats timing ram is used on the standard 7800GTX and the 7900GT? I read that the 7800GTX 512 used the rarely available 1.1ns and the 7900GTX uses a slightly slower 1.2ns for better availability.