Quiet 6970?

M

Mangonz

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Jun 4, 2006
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I already have a Sapphire 6970 with reference cooler but it is annoyingly loud (about 3 times louder than my flatmates 6850 Toxic) and I want to replace it with something quieter but I don't really want to go slower.

I see Sapphire have changed their stock coolers to a dual fan setup and they have a FLeX edition but the reviews I can find have wildly different numbers on noise levels.

Has anyone heard of these cards and can compare them? Are they all pretty much as noisy as each other?
 
I love my MSI HD 6970's. The Twin Frozr III cooler is very quiet at idle and only gets to the point where you can hear it when it gets very hot. After 10 mins of furmark my top card gets into the high 80's and then you can hear the fan as it is running at about 75-80%. The bottom card runs about 10 degrees cooler and the fan speed never gets past the 65% mark. When gaming the temps are 5-7 degrees cooler for the top card and the fan runs about 75%. Furmark runs hotter than most every game.

When I was running a single card it ran similar to the bottom card in my crossfire setup. The fan running in the 70% range is about the same noise level as my Noctua 140mm fan.
 
The MSI with the Twin Frozr is quiet.. I had a 6970 and put the Arctic Extreme Plus on it.. it was very very quiet and only hit 59C when gaming with an overclock. The cooler is about $75 but if you want a quiet system I say its worth it.
 
Copyright said:
The MSI with the Twin Frozr is quiet.. I had a 6970 and put the Arctic Extreme Plus on it.. it was very very quiet and only hit 59C when gaming with an overclock. The cooler is about $75 but if you want a quiet system I say its worth it.
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I haven't used this cooler but it sounds pretty good. Does it use three slots?

As for temps, there is a lot that comes into play with those. I mean if I play BF3 my cards run in the 75-85 range. But with WOW, Batman, and a lot of other less power hungry games they only hit 60-67.
 
My MSI 6970 reference cards are very quiet. I manually ste the fans to 50% and never hear them. Even when I bitcoined They were still very quiet. What case do you have them in? Maybe thats part of the issue.
 
LMAO, ref 6970's are unreal when you crank them up. I have 2 6970's that I am putting under water, because of the noise those things kick out! MSI Twin Frozr is a good suggestion!
 
I have a HIS IceQ Turbo 6970, and the fans barely spin above 45%. It's completely silent at max load.
 
mgrman said:
I have a HIS IceQ Turbo 6970, and the fans barely spin above 45%. It's completely silent at max load.
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Definitely not worth the premium though against the TwinFrozr, unless you got it for $220 through the Amazon deal (or steal, rather, given Amazon's extension of generosity) which you probably did.
 
friend'scatdied said:
Definitely not worth the premium though against the TwinFrozr, unless you got it for $220 through the Amazon deal (or steal, rather, given Amazon's extension of generosity) which you probably did.
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Yep, I got it through the amazon deal. I wouldn't have gone for it otherwise :) It is impressive though!
 
Grand thanks for the info!

Now I just have to figure out if it is worth attaching something like a Accelero Twin Turbo II (0.3 sone?!?) or getting one of the cards mentioned above.

I might check some of the stores here what is available might decide for me :)
 
N1GHTRA1N said:
I haven't used this cooler but it sounds pretty good. Does it use three slots?

As for temps, there is a lot that comes into play with those. I mean if I play BF3 my cards run in the 75-85 range. But with WOW, Batman, and a lot of other less power hungry games they only hit 60-67.
Click to expand...

Very true but I think I hit 61C in BF3 max.. the cooler is a 3 slot cooler and is HUGE but very very quiet. Takes a bit of work to install it and of course your warranty will be voided.
 
In the end I went with the Arctic Cooling Xtreme Plus II third party cooler, have used it for a couple of days now and and can barely hear it under load. It does pump almost all of the heat from the card into the case though so I think I might get some extra power supply and CPU fan noise if I added another card for crossfire.

Installation of all the little heatsinks was a pain until I managed to find out the thermal glue is non conductive so you don't have to worry about it running down the outside of any chips. They should totally put that in the manual. That and you have to watch the aluminium doesn't touch the leads or solder or nearby components, clearance is only 1-2mm fior the voltage regulator thingies and the manual has no layout information or tips on what heatsinks to use for Radeon cards.

All in all I would do it again though - the fan noise from the card is less than the noise the chips make under load. :)
 
any suggestions for an aftermarket two-slot cooler? i don't really have the space for a triple slot cooler. i have reference 6970's in Crossfire and they get mighty hot and loud on BF3.. i average about 80C on the top and 70C on the bottom card.
 
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