Extreme Air Cooling: Our Five-Slot (Quiet) Radeon HD 7970

[FormatC]

How much thermal glue did you use? I was able to solve all the heatsinks by slightly twisting and the remains could be scraped off. Do you have pictures of it?

 

[drandersoninc]

I used the amount required to give full coverage of the surface for each for the thermal transfer, but not an excessive amount where it pools over the sides. Per DC support this was to be used on the 'short' registers surrounding the GPU as well as the 'tall' registers on the right side of the card. The heatsinks with this adhesive could not be twisted off, nor would rubbing alcohol disolve the bond even for the heatsinks that I could remove (used a fingernail, an eraser, and an excessive amount of time). All of the heatsinks were difficult to remove, but the ones on the tall registers had a stronger adhesion than the solder of the register to the board - and yes I was being VERY careful in the attempt to remove them. And yes there were pictures sent to DC documenting the issue of the cooler not fitting and the damage that occured.

 

[FormatC]

Hmm. I have applied the clue semi-transparent with a spatula, but I will verify your problem with more thermal clue again with a cheaper card.

 

[dreadlokz]

This is SO idiotic... with $140 you can get a high quality waterblock -.-''
I use WC even in my almost 10 yo LGA775 setup, an old H50 is doing a great job, and as for a 7970 setup, you should get a nice non-reference air cooled model or just go for custom WC!
Air Cooling is DEAD. Get over it!!

 

[bogo663]

Now only if I had 5 slots to spare.

 

[zaxevil]

silent cooling with massive heatsink wow, it's to weight for my GPU

 

[freggo]

Wasting 5 (!) expansion slots ?
Seriously, that's just plain dumb in my humble oppinion.
Why not engineer a MB so that the graphics card sits at ht eedge of the obard and any overhand goues outside the MB dimensions. Than a large case can take care of the extra space and one does not waste the other expansion slots.

 

[ohmibuffet]

This is beyond idiotic. Just buy a GTX 680. Save $140 bucks, and 3 slots.

 

[genz]

Do you think you could mount this on a stock 560ti without any cooling fans?

 

[IdleChatMeister]

To everyone that noticed that there is a slot in between the fan support and the heatsink NOTE that the reviewer did not install the fan support correctly. It's a clever design that Mr. Wallossek failed to understand. The fan mount has a double role: 1. take the load off the video card PCB buy having the weight of the fans rest of the fan support; 2. support the heatsink and help the PCB remain straight and not bend due to the weght of the heatsink and take off strain from the PCI-E slot. The fan mount has a rail that matches that one from the metal heatsink and the reviewer completely missed it.

 

[sh4dow83]

Gotta tell ya... I just did this mod (after ~2 years, I finally got sick of the whining) but didn't see such a huge reduction in temperature.

The stock cooler achieved 82° at full load, with the Peter, I get 83°.
Of course... My Noctua P12 PWM are much, much quieter even when both run at 100%. So I'm still satisfied. But I expected more.