GTX 470 Cooling mod

[chainlash]

Hi so after a lot of thought i purchased the gtx 470 and found that it overheats really bad as many of you know.

Iv read many threads, replies and reviews stating that its too hot like 90'C and others saying its just 70'C, and based on that I took the extreme temperatures to be biased, well I was wrong in thinking that, as I always get 85'C on loud and the ridiculous LOUD noise when gaming (inefficiently cooling).

I purchased a Zotac gtx 470.
now its important to note that im using pci express 1.0 in this test, (I will place it on my 2.0 motherboard once i swap cases) so these results may be different when placed on a pci express 2.0 socket.

These are my stock readings using GPU-Z and Hardware Monitor.
Stock cooler:
Idle - 55 - 60 degrees celsius
Load - 85 degrees celsius

My custom cooler was by removing the plastic lid on top of the card (piece of cake) and strapping a Akasa 80mm fan with zip ties. Additionally mounting an 80mm fan on the side of the card using the Zalman fan bracket. ( this pushes air away from the centre of the card).



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With the custom cooler i get the following temperatures:

Idle: 41-46 degrees celsius

Load: 60 degrees celsius (not 1 degree more!)

PCB temp is 35'C.

GPU-Z results:


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Now these results seem amazing to me, but im worried that something is not cooling right and may fry without any notice.
If anyone has any knowledge of this type of cooling causing harm to the graphics card please met me know.


After modifying the cooler I found zotacs overclocking software "Firestorm" which allows you to increase the fan speed, but when the fan speed is increased to 60-70% a really unbearable sound is produced, FAR louder than using 2 good akasa 80mm fans (my custom cooler).

 

[chainlash]

i suppose this would be a better picture to show load temperatures
is 40'C for PCB risky? i dont have any images of the stock temps for the PCB, i just recorded the gpu only. (as it was extreme)



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[notty22]

This was done to the 8800's as well.
snip
edit
Ok, I forgot what it looked like under the plastic shroud. I was confused whether your mem and vrms cooling would be effected.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_470/3.html
As long as some air moves over the components on the right, you will be good.

 

[chainlash]

I have the stock fan running at 40%, so may be I should disable and remove the stock cooler and place another 80mm on top of the right hand side. ?

 

[mrblazito]

I'm using MSI Afterburner with custom fan profiles and my card gets to 85/86C under load when playing games. I don't mind it getting up to 90C. I'll just wait for official aftermarket cooling for these cards.

 

[chainlash]

Ok i removed the stock fan and placed an 80mm fan in its place.






I got good temperatures again during idle (39'C) and load, (load is running a game like modern warfare 2, bad company 2) I had less than 50 degrees Celsius while in game.

The thing is i dont know if these readings are accurate. Im using GPU-Z and Harwaremonitor aswell as zotac Firestom, all these softwares report low temperatures when I alt tab out of a game to check the temperature.

However when running FurMark I reached 85 degrees Celsius in 3 minutes.
Why am I getting High temperatures that high with Furmark and not with games?

 

[Mousemonkey]

Ok i removed the stock fan and placed an 80mm fan in its place.

[url]http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/5707/s8001303.th.jpg[/URL]

[url]http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/9773/s8001304.th.jpg[/URL]


I got good temperatures again during idle (39'C) and load, (load is running a game like modern warfare 2, bad company 2) I had less than 50 degrees Celsius while in game.

The thing is i dont know if these readings are accurate. Im using GPU-Z and Harwaremonitor aswell as zotac Firestom, all these softwares report low temperatures when I alt tab out of a game to check the temperature.

However when running FurMark I reached 85 degrees Celsius in 3 minutes.
Why am I getting High temperatures that high with Furmark and not with games?

Perhaps because Furmark is also known as a heat virus as it puts a totally unrealistic load on the GPU, one that you would never see under any kind of normal use no matter how hard you like to think you game.

 

[nforce4max]

Ah these types of mods are fairly common and are proven to work however you are going to need to maintain the card's cooler by cleaning it of any dust on a monthly to bi- weekly biases to avoid build up. Either wise you will have good temps for a few weeks then steadily they begin to slowly build up to ware they were prior to mod and keep on going. These coolers are known to hide dust fairly well like most ATI coolers both are dust traps. A good blast from some canned air will do and be sure to be through. As for pcb temps they should be lower after the mod since the heatsink should be cooler which will help the card last longer than it would have.