XFX 8800 GT Zalman Edition - Heatsink Questions

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CombatLibrarian

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I recently picked up an XFX 8800 GT Zalman Edition. The 8800 GT's one complaint has seemed to be high heat levels and a loud fan with the normal stock cooler, and the Zalman coolers are generally good stuff so I figured I'd try that one. Unfortunately, as you can see looking at the pic, they decided to include no heatsink solution for the ram and mofsets.

card1.jpg

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So, looking at it, I have a few options. I'm not planning on overclocking this one, but, I do play WoW and that means at least 2 long gaming sessions per week on average. I also play TF2 on a pretty regular basis.


1. Anyone have some long-term experience with the card and can offer some opinions?

2. Should I bother grabbing a zalman ram heatsink kit and putting it on those?

3. Should I bother doing some kind of heatsink solution for the mosfets?
 
The ram and mosfets do not need sinking.

If it makes you feel better to stick some ramsinks on the memory and fets, then do so...
 
[EDIT: Damn double post.... goddamned motherfucking database errors! :mad:]
 
I got the Evga Akimbo cooler for mine, to vent out the back like the GTS does and how the GT should. It's great- much cooler. I used to run up to ~97-98C in COD 4, didn't even check in Crysis. Idle at about 64C. Now, it idles at about 58C and loads at about 67C. Cpu temps are down too, since it vents out the back. It has contact with the RAM, and I think the MOSFETS, but I wouldn't be too worried about those. The other nice thing about the Akimbo is it has the heatsink on the reverse side of the board for the GPU to keep the back of the card cool. As I type, it's folding, and it's running at 64C. I wouldn't be too worried on the whole as long as your cooler isn't the stock, single slot, but I have no reservations with suggesting the Akimbo cooler from Evga. If you want a link to the product, it can be tough to find, but I have it somewhere if you're interested. Just PM me if I don't get back here in the next couple of days.

EDIT: I've had the card since launch day, whenever that was. Yeah, I overpaid, haha. Yes, it was worth it. :)
 
I've got the card up and running now. I didn't bother with mosfet sinking, but I picked up the zalman 8-pack of vram heatsinks and put those on. It's a bit tricky with the large core heatsink assembly in the way, but I found if you remove the sidebar with the XFX logo on it (easy two-screw removal) I could get at the vram chips that were buried underneath it. So far I'm extremely pleased with the temps vs. what I've heard the stock single-slot cooler achieves. Idles at an average of 37C, goes up to 45-52C under load depending on the game. (I'm using an Antec 900 case including the optional side 120mm fan, so the case is already pretty chilly in an air conditioned room.)
 
Nice, sounds like you got a good solution. The mosfets will be fine, but it sounds like you're running nice and cool. Pretty good idle temps.
 
I got this card a couple of weeks ago. I am very disappointed with the HSF, it's very loud and has no temperature control, it just spins 100% all the time. I've been using Zalman stuff for years and always been happy with the quietness so this caught me off guard.
 
While sound is all relative (my case itself has 4 120mm fans, and 1 200mm fan (antec 900), so it's not exactly silent but not loud), you might check the heatsink around the fan. The fan, to quote an official note I read from XFX elsewhere, is "designed to run at 100%" and should do so pretty quietly (I can't hear mine over the case fans). I've read that quite a few people have found that the easily-bendable fins of the heatsink can often get bent inward during shipping since the box isn't the greatest for keeping that area isolated. This makes them touch the fan very slightly and produces noise, which some gentle work bending the fins away from the fan can easily fix.

If that's not the cause and you think it's worth dialing down the fanspeed to get the card a bit quieter (if not quite as good at cooling the unit as it is at 100%), I believe you can RMA to XFX with a specific request for a version with a variable-speed fan (which is a hassle), or, and I can't remember exactly off the top of my head where, I believe there's a replacement zalman fan you can fit into the existing heatsink assembly...bit more money, bit less shipping your card around.

As for my card, the fan read 20% out of the box fan duty (which I upped to 100 out of personal preference. Again...loudish case, and I game with surround headphones so I can't really hear it most of the time anyway.), and i"ve heard some cards after a certain date shipped with a variable-speed fan, but that might be rivatuner bouncing off the newest drivers, not sure.
 
SuperSubZero said:
I got this card a couple of weeks ago. I am very disappointed with the HSF, it's very loud and has no temperature control, it just spins 100% all the time. I've been using Zalman stuff for years and always been happy with the quietness so this caught me off guard.
Click to expand...

I've got the Gigabyte card with what looks like the same HSF, yes it was too damn loud as well. The fan's not adjustable, there's no tac wire on it. I gave it a 7 volt mod (7 volt mod from a 12 v ATX connector) and its much quieter and still nice and cool.

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Using the Gigabyte Gamer Hud, I overclocked it to 750,1800,950. 1000 memory runs fine, just makes me nervous without any ram sinks. Its Samsung ram rated for 1000 Mhz I think, so I'm sure it would be fine. The card would probably do more, but this is enough for me.
 
SuperSubZero said:
I got this card a couple of weeks ago. I am very disappointed with the HSF, it's very loud and has no temperature control, it just spins 100% all the time. I've been using Zalman stuff for years and always been happy with the quietness so this caught me off guard.
Click to expand...

this reminds me of when i rma'd a 7800gtx oc 256mb card to bfg, they sent me back one without fan control and no matter what, it was 100% fan all the time, this was totally unacceptable to me, but they wouldn't budge, to me the card was defective, to them, at least it wasn't dead like my first one...

so off i went to another card...
 
I've got a Gigabyte card with the same cooler - VF830 and it runs quiet at 100%. I've had the cheaper VF700 as well installed @ 100% and it runs quiet as well. But as one of the posts say, its all personal perception. You might say mine are loud as well. But then again, it might be a bad batch of cooler units they got from Zalman on 'the cheap'.

Bottom line, if your not satisfied with the quality of the product, ask for a replacement from the supplier.
 
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