Accelero hd4870x2

An update, my card crapped up. The VRMs were reaching temps near 100C while the GPU cores wouldn't reach 60C when OC'd to 820/1000. Graphics would hardlock while gaming, but the sounds and computer itself stayed functional, if I let it idle for a couple of minutes the ATIKMDAG.sys BSOD would pop up. It got to the point where the drivers wouldn't even recognize the card and would refuse to boot the PC while having the CCC drivers installed. Luckily I RMA'd the card to Asus and it looks like I'll be getting a TOP replacement card which is stock clocked higher than my previous card.

The cooler is nice, a bit of a bitch to put in, definitely needs new screws. Will current owners of the AC Xtreme get the longer screws?

Also is it possible to buy more of the thermal pads that are included with these coolers / other heatsinks?
 
TotalLamer said:
Where can you see VRM temps? Does HardwareMonitor show it?
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Rivatuner.

EGM92 said:
An update, my card crapped up. The VRMs were reaching temps near 100C while the GPU cores wouldn't reach 60C when OC'd to 820/1000. Graphics would hardlock while gaming, but the sounds and computer itself stayed functional, if I let it idle for a couple of minutes the ATIKMDAG.sys BSOD would pop up. It got to the point where the drivers wouldn't even recognize the card and would refuse to boot the PC while having the CCC drivers installed. Luckily I RMA'd the card to Asus and it looks like I'll be getting a TOP replacement card which is stock clocked higher than my previous card.

The cooler is nice, a bit of a bitch to put in, definitely needs new screws. Will current owners of the AC Xtreme get the longer screws?
Click to expand...

VRMs are rated to operate in temps up to 125C. I'm guessing somewhere the screws werent tight enough thus bad contact inbetween the core and the heatsink lead to an eventual "crack".

Arctic Cooling will send you eight 8mm M2 screws for free if you ask for it.
 
Screws and everything were properly tightened, not overtightened either. Everything was aligned properly as well. VRM's would stay cool, up until you started to game with them, idling at like 61C while at 820/1000, then as soon as you'd game, they'd climb really fast.

Any idea where to get thermal pads? I ruined 3 while putting my stock HSF back on.
 
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My vrms only reach 100c in furmark. However I put a noctua 120 fan (hung it by zip ties) near the VRM areas and this seem to pull the heat out of them pretty well.
 
Im suprised that this huge heatsink block doesnt cool the vrms any better.

From guru3ds review

imageview.php
 
Thanks for hte link.

I just got my cards back. I sent Asus 2, original HD4870X2's, that I bought for 300$ each and they send me back 2x HD4870x2 Tri-Fan editions in full retail packaging.


2chlt7t.jpg
 
EGM92 said:
Thanks for hte link.

I just got my cards back. I sent Asus 2, original HD4870X2's, that I bought for 300$ each and they send me back 2x HD4870x2 Tri-Fan editions in full retail packaging.


2chlt7t.jpg
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:eek: I'm so jealous. Do they look new as well? Because Asus tri fan has been gone from newegg for a while now.
 
It was factory sealed, everything about the card screamed brand new. The Trifan edition is not as loud as the standard cooler, but definitely not as quiet as the accelero, not by a long shot. The Accelero @ 100% fan I could barely tell the difference between that and my case fans. The Trifan though @ 100% sounds what the stock cooler sounds at about 60% which isn't too bad. but I'm not going to put the accelero back on this cooler feels built solid compared to the accelero
 
I may have just bricked my 4870x2.... It was working perfectly fine before I installed the Accelero today.

I carefully went through all the new instructions with a set of the longer (M2) screws. Everything came together pretty well, and I threw my card back into the rig. The quietness of the Accelero was a beautiful thing! I tested a few games and benchmarks, and it was all gravy.

While cleaning up, I noticed that I had forgotten to put the springs under the X-bracket screws. I pulled the card out and installed the springs. Suddenly, I no longer get a signal from the video card on boot up. I'm afraid the gpu's might have died from the pressure of the screws.

Any ideas on this?

Argh, I should have just left it without the springs...

Update: Swapped a working 8800GTX and it boots up fine... ARGH
 
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that thing has the biggest cooler of all time. wow, ftw!
 
I can't say I've tried installing the Accelero hd4870x2, so I really don't have the right to say anything, but good God damn!

Bricking a 4870x2 is SRS buisness! I've installed a couple S1 Accelero's, It can't be that much different. :confused:
 
So how noisy are those tri-fans? They should do the job cooling, but a pair of those must make a ton of noise.
 
snaggletooth said:
I can't say I've tried installing the Accelero hd4870x2, so I really don't have the right to say anything, but good God damn!

Bricking a 4870x2 is SRS buisness! I've installed a couple S1 Accelero's, It can't be that much different. :confused:
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I've installed a lot of S1's for friends on their 4850's, that was a extremely easy to do compared to this accelero. The X brackets are a massive pain. What I don't understand is what is making all these cards fail. Mine failed from a little overclocking but all temps were well within safe zones. I bought my original cards used and the previous owners had played around with them. While speaking to a guy who's been playing/modding with ATI cards for a long while now, he told me to keep on "the red play on the VRM". When I took apart my card there was no such plate, anyone know what he's talking about? He installs a lot of Twinturbo coolers on 4870/90's.

vjcsmoke said:
So how noisy are those tri-fans? They should do the job cooling, but a pair of those must make a ton of noise.
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XTREMELY quiet :p The fans at 100% are quieter than my Trifan card at 60%, which is as loud as the 80-90% fan speed of a reference cooler. I wish I could somehow just those fans on my Trifan instead, they're so much better, the airflow is great on them aswell. Trifan cards have an exhaust like other 4870X2's but it's useless as all the head is coming straight up, which you can feel coming out of the case. The accelero on the otherhand had only warm air coming up which rarely effected the CPU heat.
 
snaggletooth said:
I can't say I've tried installing the Accelero hd4870x2, so I really don't have the right to say anything, but good God damn!

Bricking a 4870x2 is SRS buisness! I've installed a couple S1 Accelero's, It can't be that much different. :confused:
Click to expand...

Honestly, it's not THAT difficult to install it, just apparently extremely easy to break the cards while installing. The part that took me the longest was cleaning up the stock thermal paste/pads off so that I would get the very best heat transfer to the accelero. I was very careful in putting the cooler on, so it's possible for me that adding the springs put just enough pressure to break the gpu (Just a guess).

I stil don't know what's up with my card :(
 
Just installed the damn thing and man was it a pain in the ass. Reused the m2 screws that came with the stock heatsink...didnt even bother to take a chance with the x-brackets screws themselves.

Already got a problem. Ran OCCT test (default (0) load) and gpu0 vrms shot up to 140C. Reran it again 130C. GPU0 is the core closest to the exhaust, right? B/c the heatsink Accelero supplied for GPU0 vrm is either is not big enough or as I see it because its only held down in one place does not cover the bigger VRMs as well. GPU1 vrms stayed around 100C which is still high but not my first priority.

Played some CS:S and GTA IV and VRMs GPU0 stayed around 40-50C.
If worst comes to worst I'll just take everything off and take of the ultra thick thermal tape that Accelero provided for the 2nd VRM and use some thinner 3M tape I bought a while back.

Also when I was looking at the side profile view of the card as I was making sure I tightened all the x bracket screws correctly I noticed that the PLX PCIE crossfire chip might not make good contact with the heatsink. Whether that might be a problem I do not know b/c I am not aware of a plugin that gets temp readings from that.

Good news so far

Idle temps down to 30-33C both cores.

Load
OCCT Gput test
GPU0 max - 70C (?!?!? dont know)
GPU1 max - 53C
 
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OMG...I must be in g33k heaven.

Took the card out of the case, double checked all the x brackets and the vrm heatsink. Tightened up all the screws around the x brackets and plugged it back in.

Wow...my idle temps became my load temps.

Just ran 4 passes of Crysis Benchmark assault harbor.
1920x1200 DX10 / Very high all / no AA.

crysis_load_temps.png


Neither core went above 50C :eek:

Also both VRMS stayed under the 125C limit as well.. GPU0 vrm maxed out at 86C :cool:

Sweet...which reminds me I didnt buy this cooler and spend all this time installing it just to run stress tests ;)
 
Do I need to get the cooler for the 4870X2, specifically? It looks to me like the XTREME GTX280 is the exact same thing.

Also, could I use the Twinturbo cooler or S1 V2? It looks cheaper and seems like it would do almost as good of a job as the XTREME4870x2.

EDIT: Nvm. I see that the Accelero XTREME 4870X2 is specifically designed for the 4870X2 due to its backplate shape. I still need an answer on the screws...

Are getting more 8mm M2 screws really necessary?
 
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Alai said:
Do I need to get the cooler for the 4870X2, specifically? It looks to me like the XTREME GTX280 is the exact same thing.

Also, could I use the Twinturbo cooler or S1 V2? It looks cheaper and seems like it would do almost as good of a job as the XTREME4870x2.

EDIT: Nvm. I see that the Accelero XTREME 4870X2 is specifically designed for the 4870X2 due to its backplate shape. I still need an answer on the screws...

Are getting more 8mm M2 screws really necessary?
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No...the stock heatsink itself already has like dozen+ M2 screws holding it together. By the stock heatsink I am talking about the heatsink itself, not the screws that hold the upper heatsink, pcb and backplate together.
 
BTW do the 8 pin to 6 pin adaptor that Accelero provided with the cooler still deliver the power standard for an 8 pin PCIE connector?

I cant seem to hit 839 core stable with 990 memory no matter what voltage; crysis benchmark fails after the second run despite that I was able to hit this with a lot higher voltage with the stock cooler for more runs.

WTF?
 
DeadSkull said:
OMG...I must be in g33k heaven.

Took the card out of the case, double checked all the x brackets and the vrm heatsink. Tightened up all the screws around the x brackets and plugged it back in.

Wow...my idle temps became my load temps.

Just ran 4 passes of Crysis Benchmark assault harbor.
1920x1200 DX10 / Very high all / no AA.

Neither core went above 50C :eek:

Also both VRMS stayed under the 125C limit as well.. GPU0 vrm maxed out at 86C :cool:

Sweet...which reminds me I didnt buy this cooler and spend all this time installing it just to run stress tests ;)
Click to expand...

Very nice, congrats on getting it to work for you. For a minute there, I was expecting another horror story.

I actually tried installation of this heatsink on a second 4870x2 (first one bricked), and although I get a perfect signal, the fans aren't firing up at all, and they don't seem to be getting power. I've tested the rig/psu/pci-e slot/and even swapping the AC cooler and those are fine. I can't figure out what could have happened to the card for something this specific to go awry.

If I can't figure this out, I'm thinking this heatsink just isn't for me :p
 
defy said:
Very nice, congrats on getting it to work for you. For a minute there, I was expecting another horror story.

I actually tried installation of this heatsink on a second 4870x2 (first one bricked), and although I get a perfect signal, the fans aren't firing up at all, and they don't seem to be getting power. I've tested the rig/psu/pci-e slot/and even swapping the AC cooler and those are fine. I can't figure out what could have happened to the card for something this specific to go awry.

If I can't figure this out, I'm thinking this heatsink just isn't for me :p
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Yea, I was extremely worried about screwing up so I put everything together very slowly. I also skipped the part about trying to use those stock screws in the x brackets and replaced them all with the 8mm M2 that hold the stock heatsink together. When I was mounting the Accelero heatsink onto the pcb and I used a flashlight to check how close the mounts were to the pcb...I managed to check them all and tighten whichever ones still had space left.

Only thing that I am dissapointed in is the size of the smaller vrm heatsink block. Considering the size of the first one (nearly a 1/3 of the pcb) and thats barely enough to keep vrms at 125C during OCCT/furmark the second one is too small. Also the fact that the second vrm heatsink is secured only by one screw ends up in a disproportionate distribution of pressure over the spread vrm resulting in higher temps on the bigger vrm block for me.
 
DeadSkull said:
Yea, I was extremely worried about screwing up so I put everything together very slowly. I also skipped the part about trying to use those stock screws in the x brackets and replaced them all with the 8mm M2 that hold the stock heatsink together. When I was mounting the Accelero heatsink onto the pcb and I used a flashlight to check how close the mounts were to the pcb...I managed to check them all and tighten whichever ones still had space left.

Only thing that I am dissapointed in is the size of the smaller vrm heatsink block. Considering the size of the first one (nearly a 1/3 of the pcb) and thats barely enough to keep vrms at 125C during OCCT/furmark the second one is too small. Also the fact that the second vrm heatsink is secured only by one screw ends up in a disproportionate distribution of pressure over the spread vrm resulting in higher temps on the bigger vrm block for me.
Click to expand...

Hmm... Could you try using a zip tie to add pressure? Also, I believe someone mentioned that they added a Noctua fan to blow over the VRM heatsink which helped temps by about 25C or so.
 
Alai said:
Hmm... Could you try using a zip tie to add pressure? Also, I believe someone mentioned that they added a Noctua fan to blow over the VRM heatsink which helped temps by about 25C or so.
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That's me. I have a noctua hanging by a zip tie over the 2 vrms pulling the heat out of the case from the side.
 
Is everyone using the stock 4870x2 back plate or not? I've seen review sites go both ways on this.


BTW, that's what she said. There it's out of the way. :D
 
Any updates from people still using this? I run the card stock, and the card is running with decent temps but I am interested in having it run cooler so that it lasts.

All these scary reviews worry me so I am leaning towards no.
 
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