Hi. I have an AeroCool VM-101 that I was previously using on an ATI 9800AIW. Now that I've stepped up to PCI-E, I was looking at getting a 7600GT (especially since there seem to be some decent deals with rebates on Newegg right now).

My question is this: Will the VM-101 adequately cool a 7600GT (possibly the BFG OC one)? And also, will it even fit on the 7600GT? I know there's at least one 7600GT that is passively cooled (Gigabyte, I believe), but I'm not sure how much custom-fitting they had to do for that.

I don't play too many games anymore, but when I do, I'd like things to look fairly decent graphic-wise. Also, if anybody has any other suggestions for cards to look into, I'd appreciate it. Thanks for any help you guys can give.

78 C full load during summer time in Toronto.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/vi ... hp?t=33113

Cool! Thank you very much. Of course, now I'm considering getting a PNY 7900GS since Best Buy has them on sale for $150 this week...I'll let everyone know how well the VM101 works on that...

Well, I got my PNY 7900GS from BestBuy earlier this week. Temps with stock cooling were 51C idle and 72C under load (looping 3DMark for a few hours). I managed to get my AeroCool VM-101 onto the card (more about that below), and the final results are 46C idle, 68C under load. Not bad, I'd say.

As far as getting the cooler onto the card, the mounting screws that came with the VM-101 are a little too big. I saw a few mentions around the net of people drilling out slightly bigger holes in their various cards to get the screws to fit. I didn't want to start drilling my brand new card, so I figured it'd be easier just to get some smaller screws. A quick trip up to Ace Hardware and all was solved. I ended up getting four sets of M2.5 screws with nuts and four additional rubber O-rings from the plumbing section. Total cost was just over 5 bucks. Plus there's the added benefit of using all four mounting arms, rather than just two like before, which should mean the pressure is spread more evenly on the chip. Something to note about the M2.5 screws--they're exactly the same size as the mounting holes, so it may seem like they don't fit (eg, they don't slide loosely through the holes). However, they thread right through the holes with no problem. M2.3 screws would probably be ideal, but I have no problem with having to thread the screws through the card (plus I didn't want to go back to Ace).

All in all, this was a good deal. Now it's time to see how far this thing will overclock...