This case ok for 4850?

M

Mysterlee

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Apr 22, 2008
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Hello,

My brother will be upgrading to a 4850 this year for Christmas but I'm not 100% sure if it'll stay cool enough in his case.

Here is a photo of the inside of his case. It has one 92mm exhaust fan and there's a 1 PCI slot gap between the red graphics card and black sound card currently in there. His options really seem to be either a stock cooled 4850 or a HIS 4850 IceQ 4 if there isn't enough ventilation in the case for the stock cooler. The problem I see with the IceQ though is that it might stuggle to get any air as there would only be 1 PCI slot width between it and the bottom of the case due to it being a dual slot design.

Does this case have enough ventilation for a 4850 and will a stock cooler model do or would he need something better like an IceQ?

Thanks
 
The 4850 i had was one hot piece of hardware... it went up to 110°C on Crysis my case is properly ventilated... get an aftermarket or one of those special editions better
 
As I was saying though, the only other cooler I could get is the IceQ as it's the only one that won't be blocked by the sound card below, however there's not going to be much of a gap between the fan and the bottom of the case if I go down that route so I don't know if it'll get enough air.

Ideally a stock cooler would be best as it's cheaper but I'd need some one to confirm that it'd be fine in that case.
 
On my P5Q-Pro, the 2nd PCI-E slot is right next to the two PCI slots and I need both of them, and both of the cards I use in those slots are pretty long. The result is that on my 2nd 4850 I have a PCI card in the very next slot that quite literally blocks 3/4th of the fan intake on the card. I was worried since I was already coming down from 3 PCI cards on my previous board and couldn't spare any more PCI cards and I didn't want the 4850 overheating, but so far I haven't had any problems at all.

From what I'm reading your 4850 will have a full PCI slot gap for air? that a full slot more than my 2nd 4850 has and it's doing fine. Right now I have the fan mod going at 65% and there is only like a 4-5C difference between the card that has a wide open fan intake and the one that is 3/4th blocked while running 3dmark.
 
I'm running a 4850 in a case with two 80mm exhaust fans (each 25.6cfm) plus the 120mm PSU fan and I have absolutely no problems. Currently idling at 72C at the desktop, 5% fan speed. Temp will climb to mid 80's when running games. Pic

The fan is temperature controlled so if the card is installed in a small case with poor ventilation, the fan will spin faster to compensate. In a good case, the fan will only spin at 40% - 50% even when running games so there's definitely some marigin. At 100%, the stock cooler is actually pretty good, but it's extremely loud.

it went up to 110°C on Crysis my case is properly ventilated..
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That's crazy! Did you use a static fan speed or the default Auto mode? In auto mode, the fan will increase with the GPU temp and land at 100% when the GPU temp hits 104C. The default Auto setting should not allow the GPU to get hotter than 85C - 88C in games. However if you use a custom fan speed, you loose this functionality - e.g. if you have it at 30% at the desktop and forget to turn it up to maybe 50% or more when running a game, the card will overheat. Better just leave it alone unless you're overclocking.

Still, the IceQ version of the card will run much cooler and act like a second exhaust fan, dumping the heated air from the GPU outside the case. I think the PCI card in that case is so short that it would not block the actual fan intake.
 
Thanks alot for your replies, sounds like it won't be as bad as I thought it might be. I was worried that not having an intake fan would be a problem.
 
Mysterlee said:
Thanks alot for your replies, sounds like it won't be as bad as I thought it might be. I was worried that not having an intake fan would be a problem.
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Well, the exhaust fan pulls cool air into the case too through the many holes and vents in the case. If it didn't, and no new air entered the case, there'd be a vacuum inside :)
 
That an HP case? I just worked on one with identical insides. It actually cooled pretty well. I say, throw the 4850 in there. If it gets too hot, then deal with it.
 
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