Cooler I should get for an AMD 7870 video Card?

They make noise, too.

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Jstar
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Cooler I should get for an AMD 7870 video Card?

Post by Jstar » Thu Apr 05, 2012 6:39 pm

I am planning on getting an Amd 7870 Video card and need help on the cooler card combination I should buy. My system specs are an Antec Solo II case (Acousti Pack sound damping applied) , Intel I7-870 with Thermalright mux120 Heat Sink, 3 7200 rpm hard drives (all suspended). I am using three Sythe 120mm 800 rpm slipstream fans. The two in front are undervolted to 10 volts, the one in back is at 12 volts.

Is it better to have a reference AMD cooler that vents all the hot air out the back of the case or is it better to a have a video card with two coolers that dissipates the heat inside the case? If the two cooler cards are better do the case fans have to be run at higher speeds?

Which AMD 7870 video cards would you recommend?

CA_Steve
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Re: Cooler I should get for an AMD 7870 video Card?

Post by CA_Steve » Thu Apr 05, 2012 7:46 pm

Reference card: will be louder and the case temp (etc) will be lower for given case fan speed(s).

Aftermarket designed card: will be quieter and the case temp (etc) will be higher for given case fan speed(s)

How much noisier: XFX Black Edition @ HT4U...lots!

How much higher temp? Maybe 3-5 degrees C...hard to say until you try it. However, spinning up the case fans a bit will still be way quieter than going with stock cooler.

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Re: Cooler I should get for an AMD 7870 video Card?

Post by Tzupy » Fri Apr 06, 2012 12:13 am

The Radeon 7870 I would get is from Sapphire, but I only saw one review of the overclock version.
It has a metal plate that cools the VRMs and is bolted to the back connector, rigidizing the card.
This Sapphire 7870 uses less power than the XFX, but it's still noisy, so you'll need either to tweak
the BIOS or install an aftermarket cooler. Both the AC Twin Turbo II and Mono Plus *should* do.
When I'll buy mine I'll install a Thermalright Shaman on it (I already have the Shaman).

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Re: Cooler I should get for an AMD 7870 video Card?

Post by Jstar » Fri Apr 06, 2012 9:18 pm

If I go with an open air cooler would it help to zip tie a low speed 92mm exhaust fan to the bottom card slots to help remove the video card's heat?


I was able to test a reference Amd 6870 card in this machine. With the Acousti-pack sound damping installed the card was tolerable when gaming. The GPU temperature hit 80 degrees C(40 C idle) and the fan spun at 2200rpm(1100 rpm idle). Unfortunately I do not have access to a card that exhausts heat within the case for testing.

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Re: Cooler I should get for an AMD 7870 video Card?

Post by CA_Steve » Sat Apr 07, 2012 6:21 am

Maybe - but the turbulence from the slots will make that fan noisier than the rest. Comparing your setup to SPCR's:

You: 95W TDP CPU, 130W GPU, 3 HDD, 2 front 800rpm @ 10V, rear 800 @ 12V = 85C GPU
SPCR: 125W TDP CPU, 110W GPU, 1 HDD, TrueQuiet @12V, Nexus @ 12V = 80C GPU

Pretty similar in total heat generated. You don't mention what the other temps are when you load the system...because if it's just the GPU getting toasty, it's not a big deal.

If you do want more airflow, what about replacing the rear fan with the TrueQuiet that came w/ the case? What about not undervolting the front fans when gaming (maybe use a fan controller with profiles)?

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Re: Cooler I should get for an AMD 7870 video Card?

Post by MikeC » Sat Apr 07, 2012 8:22 am

CA_Steve wrote:Maybe - but the turbulence from the slots will make that fan noisier than the rest. Comparing your setup to SPCR's:

You: 95W TDP CPU, 130W GPU, 3 HDD, 2 front 800rpm @ 10V, rear 800 @ 12V = 85C GPU
SPCR: 125W TDP CPU, 110W GPU, 1 HDD, TrueQuiet @12V, Nexus @ 12V = 80C GPU

Pretty similar in total heat generated.
Actually, that GPU power for SPCR's 4870 1GB is too low. In Furmark, we estimate 134W. (121W in ATITool)
See first table here: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article920-page7.html

CA_Steve
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Re: Cooler I should get for an AMD 7870 video Card?

Post by CA_Steve » Sat Apr 07, 2012 11:20 am

Good catch - I grabbed the 4850 TDP by mistake. The 4870 TDP is 160W, making the SPCR setup a bigger heat generator than the OP - yet still having decent internal temps.

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Re: Cooler I should get for an AMD 7870 video Card?

Post by Jstar » Tue Apr 10, 2012 7:11 pm

The reason for the concern is this machine is 85% business machine and 15% gaming machine. I also know I should not be gaming on a business machine but I do not have the money or space for a second computer. The machine is running at standard speeds and will never be overclocked.

"Pretty similar in total heat generated. You don't mention what the other temps are when you load the system...because if it's just the GPU getting toasty, it's not a big deal."

I believe this would be the case and the extra heat may affect hard drive temps but would not affect the Cpu as much.

Total system specs:
Windows 7 x64
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-P55-UD5 - has 12 SATA ports
Processor: I7-870
Cpu Heat Sink: Thermalright mux-120 (has 120mm fan that spins at 1200 rpm)
Memory 16GB - 4 x 4 GB modules (needed for Photoshop)
Video Card ?
Power Supply: Enermax Platimax EPM600AWT 600W

3 Sythe Slipstream 800 rpm fans. 1 at 12 volts exhaust in back. 2 at 10 volts intake at front

Antec Solo II with 24 holes drilled in Drive Cage to provide suspended drive mounting for three 7200 rpm hard drives. Used 3/16 shock cord from McMaster Carr for suspension. Acousti-Pack sound damping applied to sides, top, and front.

Hard Drives:
Intel X-25-M 80 GB SSD for OS and application programs
Seagate ST32000641AS XT 2GB General Purpose Storage
Seagate ST32000641AS XT 2GB Photoshop Storage Drive
Seagate ST3000DM001 3GB System Backup Drive

2 external Redundant Hard Drives (eSATA) for Photoshop Backup (only on when in use)

Sony DVD RW Optical Drive
Pioneer BLU-Ray RW Optical Drive

System Temperatures:
CPU 28 -32 C Idle Normal Use 35 C Gaming 45C (50C Peak)
Hard Drives 32-34 C Winter 37 - 39 C Summer Add 1 C or 2 C when doing backups
Current Video Card 41 C When gaming 80C (6870)

Cpu will reach a maximum of 55 - 60 C when doing Backups (all 4 cores are running at 100 percent using Acronis True Image, but there is no heavy video card load while this happens).

When using Photoshop the GPU can heat up to 58 C but the Video card fan speed does not increase.


At this point I am leaning towards a 7870 video card with a reference design. Diamond 7870PE52G Radeon HD7870.

If I go with a open air card I will get the Sapphire Card.

I did look at this article which is close to the system I have.
Fanless Power Supply PC Build Guide
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1221-page1.html

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Re: Cooler I should get for an AMD 7870 video Card?

Post by Pafenfalcon » Tue Apr 24, 2012 2:37 am

what about the Accelero twin turbo ii?

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Re: Cooler I should get for an AMD 7870 video Card?

Post by CA_Steve » Tue Apr 24, 2012 5:44 am

So, you are adding maybe 30W to the system going from the 6870 to the 7870...still lower than the SPCR reference in the Solo II review. I think you have room for improvement in your fans. I'd go with the open air GPU and then do some fan-fu. Put the True Quiet back in the rear fan slot.

Jstar
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Re: Cooler I should get for an AMD 7870 video Card?

Post by Jstar » Tue Apr 24, 2012 3:29 pm

I actually got a 7950 which adds 60 watts more heat. There was a recent price drop on the 7950 and 7970. The 7950 has no effect on temps when it is idling. When the GPU is under load, the hard drive temperatures are not affected by the video card. There is a fan in front of the hard drives and this keeps the heat away from them. The Cpu temperature did increase by about 5 to 6 degrees C. I tried a small fan in the back below the graphics card and it did not seem to help. I replaced the bottom front fan with a 1200 rpm Sythe and it helped a little (2 dgrees C).

The thing that helped the most was to isolate the Gpu card from the rest of the system by putting a barrier between the Gpu and the processor section. The same idea as the Antec P183 isolating the PSU from the rest of the system.

I got the idea form this article.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article595-page2.html

For now I just tried making the barrier out of cardboard and it helped a lot. I could run with the old 800
rpm case fans and everything seemed to run at a reasonable temperature. Cpu temps did not increase. I also added Aero Pci slots to the back of the Case to increase cooling.

I have some Styrene on order to build the barrier.

The other option is to take the fans off of the Video card and build a styrene case around the video card just like SilentPc article mentioned above.

I am going with barrier approach first..

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Re: Cooler I should get for an AMD 7870 video Card?

Post by CA_Steve » Tue Apr 24, 2012 3:32 pm

cool - have fun modding!

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