Arctic Cooling NV5

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Punisher77

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 23, 2004
Messages
260
Well, after reading some glowing reviews on this product I went out and bought it ($30 CAN, not bad). After an incredibly nerve-wracking install process I got the NV5 up and running and before turning the system on I wanted to make sure that I have good contact with all the chips and GPU. The GPU is barely touching! I read here that you need LOTS of AS on the GPU for it to make contact but I had to put on a rediculous amount. Furthermore, one of the ram chips wasn't even touching the HS no matter how much AS I put on it.

On top of all that, when I had it running I couldn't feel ANY exhaust coming out of the case despite the fact that the fan was on.

I would recommend against getting this product. I might recommend it if Arctic Cooling can tighten their quality control on the manufacturing but as it stands there are far too many defects on this product.

:mad:
 
I had similar trouble... I had to bend some heatsink near the caps to get it to sit at all.

Still then it wasn't a great fit, but it works well anyways.
 
strossos said:
I had similar trouble... I had to bend some heatsink near the caps to get it to sit at all.
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That's rediculous! I was thinking about bending the HS but then I figured I would take my chances with another sample. I've heard that people have had ram pads on the HS that were twice the height of the other ones. How can Arctic Cooling put out a product like this for such an extremely sensitive and expensive product?
 
heh I posted multiple times about how bad are the new NV silencers 5. In my case, the first NV5 i bought had one memory pad much higher than the others. I exchanged for a brand-new one and it still didn't fit on right (huge gap b/n the copper base and GPU). So I bought a few sheets of sand paper (150grit to 1200grit) and lapped till I got sick of it - a few hours at least to get it to touch my GPU. After this, I am never buying another Arctic Cooling product. Nice concepts, sh!tty execution - outsourcing to some third-grade manufacturers in China. Don't get me wrong, China makes good products but not on that particular plant which works for Arctic Cooling.
 
I can't see why you guys have had so many problems with the NV5. For me, it was straight forward and simple on my BFG 6800 OC: rip old cooler off, clean, apply AS Ceramique, mount NV5 on. Simple as that, memory/GPU core contacts with no problem, got a 12C reduction in card temperature, 4C reduction in case temps.

The only reason why I'd understand is that I've heard around the forums that other brands (PNY, MSI, etc. etc.) have problems with the NV5, except the BFG. Can anyone corroborate this?
 
Asus's cards have some serious problems with NV5 lol. I haven't heard nething about MSI having probs with NV5..
 
BFG 6800 GT OC and NV Silencer 5... great fit...

I did the blotch test where I applied a little grease and pressed on to see what the contact area was... much to my surprise, I got a really good contact spread on all the memory and gpu.
 
Ok well either the NV5 only works with BFG cards or there is really bad quality control. I sent mine in for RMA so we'll see what happens with the next one I get.

I'm getting really worried about constantly changing the HSF on this expensive video card. Am I just paranoid?
 
I seriously doubt is has anything to do with the brand. I got my 6800gt in July, when all 6800s were made in one place by nVidia and then rebadged by manufacturers (or so everyone believes). I have straight out reference 6800gt and 2 NV5s i went through didn't fit at all. In most cases it's a toss of a coin, with odds being in favor that it won't fit right on any 6800.
 
Mine fits fine on my 6800. I did lap it a little, but that was to smooth the copper. It has reduced temperatures on my GPU considerably. I put an even amount of thermal compound on the unit, and I did have to tighten it considerably, but not to the point where I was ever worried about damage to my card.

As for feeling the exhaust out the back, the fan on the unit isn't a Delta 60CFM screamer, it's meant for low noise. I can feel the airflow from mine, but it isn't massive, it's meant to do its job; exhaust hot air from the GPU heatsink out of the case, thereby keeping ambient temps down. Mine does this well without earsplitting noise-levels.
 
airborne_mtrs said:
I have mine running great on my BFG...Droped my temps about 10c.
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Same here, I Idle at freaking 50C now! Load? I'm still trying to break 68C! This cooler is great considering I was loading at 82C before!

I have the BFG too, great fit, easy install. Got to Ultra speeds and benchmark 12,000 no problems at all. :D
 
Has anyone tried it on a Chaintech?

I'm hoping that this next one I get is ok. I don't want to sand it down at all because it would void my chances of getting an RMA.
 
I did not have any problems with my NV5 and BFG 6800GT...Infact the hardest thing was getting all that silicon crap off the memory....
 
Just ordered a Zalman VF700 for my BFG 6800 U OC. If it is anywhere near as great as my CNPS-7000 AlCu I think it will kill the Arctic Solution. Just posting it here in case anyone is looking for a better alternative (one that doesnt require modding your dual PCI bracket...or one that actually mounts well and has better contacts)
 
You know what pisses me off? The fact that the aftermarket cooling solutions are even necessary. The Intel stock Prescott cooler is one of the best for that chip and others, and yet graphics card manufacturers use such gimmicky crap that necessitates replacement. :mad:
 
BossNoodleKaboodle said:
You know what pisses me off? The fact that the aftermarket cooling solutions are even necessary. The Intel stock Prescott cooler is one of the best for that chip and others, and yet graphics card manufacturers use such gimmicky crap that necessitates replacement. :mad:
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I agree 100%, but some companies have good cooling solutions. The X850XT PE has something similar to the NV5, and Galaxy uses the NV5 on their 6800 GT's. The 6800 Ultra has a good cooler on it also. Just depends what company you go with. The BFG design is one of the worst designs i've ever seen in my LIFE. Seriously, its a joke. Can't wait till my NV5 comes in :)
 
BossNoodleKaboodle said:
You know what pisses me off? The fact that the aftermarket cooling solutions are even necessary. The Intel stock Prescott cooler is one of the best for that chip and others, and yet graphics card manufacturers use such gimmicky crap that necessitates replacement. :mad:
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How can you complain? These cooling solutions are just to have it running at stock. They're not trying to get you a super high OC.
 
undertheradar said:
Just ordered a Zalman VF700 for my BFG 6800 U OC. If it is anywhere near as great as my CNPS-7000 AlCu I think it will kill the Arctic Solution. Just posting it here in case anyone is looking for a better alternative (one that doesnt require modding your dual PCI bracket...or one that actually mounts well and has better contacts)
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Any pics?
 
Punisher77 said:
How can you complain? These cooling solutions are just to have it running at stock. They're not trying to get you a super high OC.
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He never said anything about OCing. He was merely stating that stock HSFs that come with CPUs and video cards by default are cheap and underwhelming. With the Prescott CPUs, the HSFs that are included get the job done, barely. There are times that they make the CPU throttle. As for video cards, don't even get me started there; it's ridiculous having to go out and spend money because a default cheap cheesy fan failed, takes up too much space, is ineffective, or is just plain loud. :rolleyes: That's real lousy.
 
ajm786 said:
He was merely stating that stock HSFs that come with CPUs and video cards by default are cheap and underwhelming.
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The only reason I got the NV5 was because I wanted to OC. The stock cooler was fine. The stock cooler on my A64 was fine as well.

I don't know anything about Prescotts though.
 
Punisher77 said:
The only reason I got the NV5 was because I wanted to OC. The stock cooler was fine. The stock cooler on my A64 was fine as well.

I don't know anything about Prescotts though.
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Understood, but he wasn't referring to your situation; he was referring to default cooling solutions at large.

And I didn't get my NV5 to OC; I got mine to get rid of the nasty airplane engine noise of the default BFG cooler. ;)
 
ajm786 said:
And I didn't get my NV5 to OC; I got mine to get rid of the nasty airplane engine noise of the default BFG cooler. ;)
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Heheh, I haven't really noticed too much noise with the Chaintech solution. Maybe I'm just deaf. ;)

I was hoping that the exhuast on the NV5 would help reduce my overal system temp by a few degrees. I'm also of the school that the more you cool your components the longer they'll last so even a few degrees matter if you can do something about it.
 
undertheradar said:
Just ordered a Zalman VF700 for my BFG 6800 U OC. If it is anywhere near as great as my CNPS-7000 AlCu I think it will kill the Arctic Solution. Just posting it here in case anyone is looking for a better alternative (one that doesnt require modding your dual PCI bracket...or one that actually mounts well and has better contacts)
Click to expand...

The Zalman only has two mount points instead of four, does not cool the card's RAM, and does not exhaust hot air out the back of the case. It will probably do a decent job of cooling the GPU, but will just recirculate hot air inside the case, and it's likely to be fairly heavy on a graphics card. Not saying the NV5 is the perfect solution, but both have their pros and cons.
 
My NV5 may have my temps cooler, but in all honesty, I had no problems with the cooling solution of my BFG 6800GTOC. It was the dual fan version too that people hate. When it comes down to it, at idle and load there is at most a 6C difference between the 2 coolers, and this is overclocked to 415/1100.

It doesn't barely work in my situation, it actually works, just not the way I like it though.

At stock, I think all the coolers do their jobs well as how many here have had theirs come even close to the so called throttle temperature 120C???
 
Slade said:
At stock, I think all the coolers do their jobs well as how many here have had theirs come even close to the so called throttle temperature 120C???
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I'd be afraid of burning my house down! :)
 
So what is the verdict on getting one of these for a BFG 6800OC? I'm opening up my 6800OC on christmas and am thinking about ordering an NV 5 to install on it...
 
DragonGX said:
So what is the verdict on getting one of these for a BFG 6800OC? I'm opening up my 6800OC on christmas and am thinking about ordering an NV 5 to install on it...
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I would say go for it on a BFG. I haven't heard of too many problems with the BFG. If you have another card I would stay away from the NV5
 
DragonGX said:
So what is the verdict on getting one of these for a BFG 6800OC? I'm opening up my 6800OC on christmas and am thinking about ordering an NV 5 to install on it...
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It should be cool enough to overclock without any aftermarket cooling. I've heard that it's hard to get the NV5 seated properly on these cards so I kept stock cooling on mine and used a PCI blower below the card to exhaust hot air out of the case instead, and my temps are great even when overclocked and under heavy load. 52 idle 74max load. The NV5 will probably get a little cooler but make sure the posts are actually making contact with the RAM/GPU core.
 
You should consider the ZalmanVF700. It mounts great (just got it). I was able to get my 6800OC up to 450Mhz today...no problem. And to dispute whoever said contrary before...it does include ramsinks...although not attached to the main sink, I see this as more of an advantage than a single plate that you have with a NV5, and the sinks do get cooled by the massive fan from the main sink anyways, as the 'flower' covers them all (much like how My CNPS 7000AlCu also cools my passive nVidia chipset on the mobo). I will continue to overclock until I think I have maxed out and let you know. FWIW, my case is a Lian Li PC-V2000 with an extra 2x120mm fans in the top...I know this case is partly the reasoin for the good OC'ing. And as for the RAM, I wouldnt worry too much about the sinks on it anyways...look at the original overclocked w/ waterblock 6800U-OC...it had only a chip block...no ram. That RAM doesnt run as hot as you might think. You might not notice with a NV5 because it all gets stuck under one large plate (which I think at this point might actually make the RAM less OCable because the GPU heats up the RAM more than the RAM heats itself IMO). Look at how much you OC regular RAM w/o adding massive cooling solutions. I can tell you that under my OCing of the 6800U, while the main fan/sink gets very hot, the smaller sinks on the ram get slightly warm in comparison. This leads me to believe that single sink solutions for cooling 6800s are at a disadvantage because even though they cool the proc better, they end up heating the RAM up more in the process. Tomorrow I will try to OC the RAM as well. I am hoping with the VF700, I can OC up to 470mhz, and maybe get the RAM up to 1200 (not pushing it far, but plenty...maybe 1300 if it looks good).
 
Scheizekopf said:
Mine works awesome. Glad I got it and installed it.
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Same here... easy install and cool as a can be. At least 10C cooler than stock, quiet, lower ambient temps. Funny how on a NV Silencer 5 bitch topic, the happy people outnumber the complainers about 2:1. :D
 
CastleBravo said:
Same here... easy install and cool as a can be. At least 10C cooler than stock, quiet, lower ambient temps. Funny how on a NV Silencer 5 bitch topic, the happy people outnumber the complainers about 2:1. :D
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What brand is your card? BFG users seem to be happy but I have yet to find a non-BFG user that has had a great experience with the NV5.
 
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