Raven 2 / Fortress 2 vs aftermarket GPU coolers

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michaelius
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Raven 2 / Fortress 2 vs aftermarket GPU coolers

Post by michaelius » Wed Nov 24, 2010 5:03 am

I'm planning to buy one of silverstone cases with the rotated mobo design but thinking about it actually made me wonder about how does having GPU in vertical position work against GPU coolers.

If we look at most aftermarket GPU coolers (zalman 3000 VF, accelero extreme, etc) they all have heatpipes going parallel to long edge of GPU.

So in Raven2/FT2 such heatpipes would have to work against gravity ? By reading some materials on heatpipes it would mean performance hit but how big it would be actually in real life ?

MikeC
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Re: Raven 2 / Fortress 2 vs aftermarket GPU coolers

Post by MikeC » Wed Nov 24, 2010 7:38 am

It's only one of many factors that come into play. I doubt you could actually isolate the effect. ie -- don't worry about it. :wink:

sunefred
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Re: Raven 2 / Fortress 2 vs aftermarket GPU coolers

Post by sunefred » Wed Nov 24, 2010 10:37 am

I asked myself the exact same question the other day, and i found this on silverstones homepage QA.

http://www.silverstonetek.com/qa/qa_con ... 2&area=usa

At the bottom it says:
The illustration here shows a VGA cooler that will not work well in the FT02 because the heat source side (touching the GPU) ends up being located higher than the other end.
That would exclude the Thermalright Rad2, the Prolimatech MK-13 and maybee others. But, really who knows how much it will affect the performance? Maybee worth sending an email to Thermalright, Prolimatech or both?

MikeC
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Re: Raven 2 / Fortress 2 vs aftermarket GPU coolers

Post by MikeC » Wed Nov 24, 2010 11:10 am

sunefred wrote:
The illustration here shows a VGA cooler that will not work well in the FT02 because the heat source side (touching the GPU) ends up being located higher than the other end.
That would exclude the Thermalright Rad2, the Prolimatech MK-13 and maybee others. But, really who knows how much it will affect the performance? Maybee worth sending an email to Thermalright, Prolimatech or both?
The vast majority of VGA coolers will have some heatpipes going the wrong way. I think this includes a large number of stock VGA coolers. I still would not worry.

sunefred
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Re: Raven 2 / Fortress 2 vs aftermarket GPU coolers

Post by sunefred » Wed Nov 24, 2010 11:37 am

The vast majority of VGA coolers will have some heatpipes going the wrong way. I think this includes a large number of stock VGA coolers. I still would not worry.
Ok MikeC, you the boss :D

Should be fairly easy to try though if you have one of theese coolers by tilting the chassi 90 degrees. If I buy the MK-13 I will report back here with numbers. What makes me hesitate is the realization that the MK-13 costs as much as a normal midi Tower, and almost half of my graphics card.


Edit:

Actually Mike, given that you just did SFF gaming system with a Scythe Musashi, would you mind doing a comparison using that system between rotated and not rotated? That would be really helpful given that the Musashi has a very similar design (parallell heatpipes compared to the length of the graphics card).

quest_for_silence
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Re: Raven 2 / Fortress 2 vs aftermarket GPU coolers

Post by quest_for_silence » Wed Nov 24, 2010 1:11 pm

sunefred wrote:But, really who knows how much it will affect the performance? Maybee worth sending an email to Thermalright, Prolimatech or both?

I don't know about the hotter GPUs, but (just FYI) with a 65W Core 2 Duo my Scythe Kabuto (which I mounted the first time with the wrong orientation) worsened its performance about 1-2°C.

sunefred
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Re: Raven 2 / Fortress 2 vs aftermarket GPU coolers

Post by sunefred » Wed Nov 24, 2010 3:06 pm

I don't know about the hotter GPUs, but (just FYI) with a 65W Core 2 Duo my Scythe Kabuto (which I mounted the first time with the wrong orientation) worsened its performance about 1-2°C.
Wow, if that is anything to go by for GPUs as well, then no worries!

cordis
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Re: Raven 2 / Fortress 2 vs aftermarket GPU coolers

Post by cordis » Wed Nov 24, 2010 4:25 pm

I used to have a big Thermalright cooled gtx 285 in my FT-02, it was generally pretty cool, temperatures were in the 60s, and I was folding on it so it was getting used heavily. I wouldn't worry too much about it, if anything the fans blowing near the end of the board keep the cheap vram heat sinks cool. ;)

danimal
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Re: Raven 2 / Fortress 2 vs aftermarket GPU coolers

Post by danimal » Fri Nov 26, 2010 10:16 pm

" In all of our tests, the ProlimaTech Armageddon CPU-cooler performed much better when the heatsink was positioned horizontally with fans exhausting heated air directly towards the top of the computer case. Vertical heatsink orientation still provides good results, but internal heat-pipe liquid must overcome more travel against gravity."
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?o ... mitstart=9

i put the exact same hardware in both the p183 and the ft-02, and the cpu/ft-02 combo seems hotter by a degree or two, in my prime95 testing... with the silver arrow, i have the same problem as benchmarchreviews did there, because the cooling pipes are vertically oriented in the ft-02.

but while the increased airflow couldn't overcome the cpu orientation, it made a substantial positive difference with the gpu cooling... pick your poison.

today i bought a high-powered die grinder, and i completely cut out the grills that are in front of two of the 180mm fans on the ft-02... before that, i replaced the paste on one of the gtx460's, and i did some extensive testing with internal cardboard baffling, to direct airflow between the two sli'd video cards... i've been through this case 20 different ways to sunday, lol

danimal
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Re: Raven 2 / Fortress 2 vs aftermarket GPU coolers

Post by danimal » Fri Nov 26, 2010 10:33 pm

What is a heat pipe?
A heat pipe is a heat transfer device with an extremely high effective thermal conductivity. Heat pipes are evacuated vessels, typically circular in cross section, which are back-filled with a small quantity of working fluid. They are totally passive systems, with no moving parts, and transfer heat from a heat source to a heat sink with minimal temperature gradients, or to isothermalize surfaces.

How does a heat pipe work?
Through the evaporation and condensation of the working fluid. As heat is input at the evaporator, fluid vaporizes, creating a pressure gradient in the pipe. This forces the vapor to flow along the pipe to the cooler section where it condenses, giving up its latent heat of vaporization. The working fluid is then returned to the evaporator by capillary forces in the porous wick structure or by gravity.

Do heat pipes work against gravity?
Yes, a heat pipe is said to be operating against gravity when the evaporator is located above the condenser. In this orientation, the working fluid must be pumped against gravity back to the evaporator. All heat pipes have wick structures that pump the working fluid back to the evaporator using the capillary pressure developed in the porous wick. The finer the pore radius of a wick structure, the higher against gravity the heat pipe can operate. A thermosyphon is similar to a heat pipe, but has no wick structure and will only operate gravity aided.

What fluids are used in heat pipes?
Heat pipe working fluids range from Helium and Nitrogen for cryogenic temperatures, to liquid metals like Sodium and Potassium for high temperature applications. Some of the more common heat pipe fluids used for electronics cooling applications are ammonia, water, acetone, and methanol.

http://www.thermacore.com/frequently-as ... fault.aspx

michaelius
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Re: Raven 2 / Fortress 2 vs aftermarket GPU coolers

Post by michaelius » Mon Nov 29, 2010 1:38 pm

http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=103 ... count=1993

Looks like effect on big coolers with long heatpipe is larger than we thought.

querido
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Re: Raven 2 / Fortress 2 vs aftermarket GPU coolers

Post by querido » Sun Dec 12, 2010 5:44 pm

danimal, I'm very much interested in your experiments with this case and those cards.
Where do you stand so far?

querido
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Re: Raven 2 / Fortress 2 vs aftermarket GPU coolers

Post by querido » Mon Dec 13, 2010 4:24 am

But here's a positive report ("whisper quiet") with FT02, GTX480 and AC EXP, though he doesn't give a temp #:
viewtopic.php?f=17&t=60334&p=527760

Anatorax
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Re: Raven 2 / Fortress 2 vs aftermarket GPU coolers

Post by Anatorax » Mon Dec 13, 2010 12:33 pm

I can confirm that Accelero S1 runs great in the FT02. I have it on XFX 6850 with Turbo module and temps are amazing at idle and load. At idle temps are ~29-32C with the 180mm fans on ~400 rpm and all other fans on like 5V or so. At 70 cm the PC is silent.

(On load the temps seem to be like up to 60 or so. In Furmark they barely break 70C.)

querido
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Re: Raven 2 / Fortress 2 vs aftermarket GPU coolers

Post by querido » Mon Dec 13, 2010 2:23 pm

Oh, that's great to hear. Thank you for posting!
I had wanted to try the S1, because the *fins* run vertically in the F02.

Edit:
I will probably remove the hard-drive cage. So, my *first* try on this will probably be ducting that fan (pressurized) into the card(s), into the "reference" cooler, to exhaust out the top. That would be ideal, especially if the radial fan could be removed. Those 180s look so beefy I'll be surprised if this can't be made to work. I'll tell this thread how it goes, but it will be at least a month from now.

I think this thread is still open with regard to the models with the long vertical heat-pipe runs.
Prolimatech, by the way, recommends against their mk-13 in the RV02 here (reason unknown):
http://www.prolimatech.com/en/products/ ... 88#showtab.

Edit2:
Here is a negative report (from a 100+ page thread about the FT02, which I've read through at least twice):
"I have a 5970 with Accelero Xtreme and my load temps steadily climb all the way up to 100C where it then throttles to 540mhz. This is with 2 AP's installed and all fans on max. My previous case (P182) had poor cooling but somehow it never got that high, maybe 80C max."
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=103 ... count=1948

So, the question is still open.

Anatorax
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Re: Raven 2 / Fortress 2 vs aftermarket GPU coolers

Post by Anatorax » Tue Dec 14, 2010 12:45 pm

http://en.expreview.com/2010/11/15/90°- ... 843.html/6

People have tested few VGA coolers in vertical position here. It all comes down pretty much to whether the heatpipes run vertically or horizontally. If vertically - the coolers don't work (MK13, AC Xtreme), if horizontally - work perfectly (Accelero S1).

querido, please let me know how it goes with the HDD cage removal. I plan to switch to SSDs soon and then I won't really need any hard-drives (or I can place one in 5 25 bay). There must be a way to utilize the free space!!!! (Maybe remove the bay covers and keep there my beer cool)

querido
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Re: Raven 2 / Fortress 2 vs aftermarket GPU coolers

Post by querido » Fri Dec 17, 2010 8:44 pm

Anatorax: I will, probably in the "Cases and Damping" subforum. I will probably go to mechanical drives external-only.

MajinWu
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Re: Raven 2 / Fortress 2 vs aftermarket GPU coolers

Post by MajinWu » Tue Dec 28, 2010 1:54 pm

Glad I read this post before purchasing the Accelero Xtreme Plus for my 5870. I'm also using a Silverstone FT02 case.
So is Accelero S1 the only GPU cooler that would work well in a 90 degree case? Hope there are other options...

LM741C
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Re: Raven 2 / Fortress 2 vs aftermarket GPU coolers

Post by LM741C » Tue Dec 28, 2010 6:12 pm

See also this link http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=271632&mpage=1 starting from post #7. MK-13 efficiency dropped when the case was reoriented from horizontal (and MK-13 positioned like so ||) to standing with MK-13 positioned with the fins horizontal.

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