I'm hoping to get an extremely quiet 6970, and the MSI Lightning has a good reputation, but my distrust of the cooling that comes with a manufacturer's card leads me to hope that there can be a backup if turning down the fan on the MSI isn't enough. Is it possible to install a Thermalright Shaman on it if need be? Thermalright only guarantees that Shamans work with the reference design, but the MSI, although not reference, looks like it is very similar, possibly the same, with only upgraded electrical components making it non-reference.

Any information or experience anyone has about how these two products would go together would be very appreciated, but I think I'll give it a try, and if I find that I need to try to install a Shaman, I'll update this thread so that other people can know how it goes.

Possibly while regretting not trying the Asus DCII instead. Who knows? We'll see.

Why not just replace the stock fans in case you are not satisfied? The lightning and direct CU both have good coolers, it would be a shame to throw them away. Personally, I would be leaning more towards the direct CU because the shape of the heatsink would make it easier to attach a fan of your choice to it.

I didn't honestly think of that, but it makes sense. It could certainly be an intermediate step between keeping the installed cooling and replacing it entirely.

Do you know what the fan mounting positions are like underneath the shrouds?

Usually the stock fans are attached in a proprietary way so you`ll need to get a little creative. Of the two cards you mention the asus looks like the better candidate as the side of the heatsink facing the fans is flat unlike the msi lightning. Many use zip ties or rubber bands, personally I prefer to use long silicon/rubber fan mounting struts, their longer ends go in between the heatsink fins and are held there by friction.

The other tricky bit is finding a way to control the fans. Pwm fans should be compatible with the cards fan header electrically (but please double check first!). If you remove the plastic bit surrounding the pins you should be able to attach a regular fan onto the card, using a bit of force. Since you`ll probably want to use two fans (though a single 120mm fan is also a possibility) you`ll need either a pwm Y splitter or fans that have this built in. Arctic cooling makes various PWM models with this feature so I would certainly consider them as pwm splitters can be hard to source.

Changing the stock fans should greatly improve the performance of the cooler. Their shallow blades (compared to 25mm deep fans) and lack of frame means they perform poorly when it comes to air pressure. They also tend to have noisy bearings which is why they can be audible even at low speeds.

If you think all this is more complicated than you`d like, you could go for the cheapest reference design you can find and use the shaman on it, though you`d still have the issue of the fan plug being physically incompatible with the header on the card.

Thanks! This is very informative. I'll try the Asus and strap a 120mm on it. Even though the heatsink is shorter than the overall length of the card, if I'm lucky, I'll find a way to hook two 120s up to it, which can then be run very slowly, even at load.

Two 12`s would be unnecessary, two 92mm fans will give you nice coverage of the heatsink surface and could run at little faster (and producing more pressure) at the same noise level compared to a couple of 120mm fans. You`ll also have less weight handing from the graphics card.