a BLACK silent cooler for a HD4650..?

They make noise, too.

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee

Post Reply
biodome
Posts: 23
Joined: Thu May 26, 2005 5:54 pm
Location: Israel - Tel Aviv
Contact:

a BLACK silent cooler for a HD4650..?

Post by biodome » Sun Nov 29, 2009 2:35 pm

Hey people,

Besides the silent bug we all have, i also have a color bug. I want the entire hardware of my upcoming PC to be black. motherboard (evga p55), cpu cooler (thermalright T120B), ram (corsair dominator), PSU.. everything, including the video card and it's cooler.

This has proved a bit of a challange since I also want the video card to have dual digital outputs (2 DVI or DVI + HDMI), have black pcb, and of course - be fanless. The gaming performance and such of the card are of no interest to me.

So I found there's a black pcb XFX 4650 card with dual dvi, but like most 4650 it has a fan. I tried finding a silent solution that comes in my preferred color of choice and didn't find any.. so I thought of maybe making one myself.

I'm thinking of ordering a black andoized alpha heatsink and cutting it to measurements with a waterjet where i work.
Thought this one might do the trick:
https://www.micforg.co.jp/en/cat_lce.html
if i take it with 50mm fins.. any thoughts?
any ideas what's required to passively cool a HD4650?
or maybe a different card i haven't thought of before i dive into this insanty? :)

alecmg
Posts: 204
Joined: Thu Mar 13, 2008 5:56 am
Location: Estonia

Post by alecmg » Sun Nov 29, 2009 11:51 pm

Zalman vf2000 is silverish black. Its big enough to work passively, remove the fan altogether

SebRad
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 1121
Joined: Sun Nov 09, 2003 7:18 am
Location: UK

Post by SebRad » Mon Nov 30, 2009 2:11 am

Hi, while a I don't think the HD4550 requires a lot of cooling you might look at the Accelero S2. Of course you'll need to paint it but as you were talking about cutting another heatsink down I don't see a little painting as a problem! The wide spaced fins shouldn't be too hard to spray paint between.
Maybe you could get a passive HD4550, eg http://www.ebuyer.com/product/161559 and swap the heatsinks around and then sell the 2nd one?
You may need to get creative with the mounting…
Regards, Seb

biodome
Posts: 23
Joined: Thu May 26, 2005 5:54 pm
Location: Israel - Tel Aviv
Contact:

Post by biodome » Mon Nov 30, 2009 7:44 am

thanks for the replys :)

As for the VF2000 - Silver/nickel isn't black :P

And about the Accelero S2 - I actually have it on a card that died (did wonder if maybe the cooler is the thing that killed it). I don't think spray painting a cooler is a good idea, as I think it will harm it's cooling ability.. maybe anodizing a cooler black, but I believe copper cannot be anodized successfuly. Maybe if i can find a similar cooler which is all aluminium.. that might work (the zalman also has copper in it).

About buying a passive card and replacing, well i have an Asus HD4350 with a passive black cooler now:
http://www.itechmonster.com/cart/images ... 080931.jpg

but it's a half height card like the one you linked to, and i doubt it will hold the HD4650.. otherwise we would see more silent solutions with this chip which don't require a heatpipe.

swivelguy2
Posts: 404
Joined: Sun Jul 04, 2004 9:18 pm
Location: Illinois, USA

Post by swivelguy2 » Mon Nov 30, 2009 8:34 am

How about transplanting the heatsink from this XFX 9400 to the XFX 4650?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814150354

The hole pattern appears to be the same from the back of the card, and with them both being XFX, you might get lucky with the rest of it fitting (clearing capacitors, etc) with little or no modification.

Post Reply