What's the best aftermarket cooler for silencing the AMD 5850?

Sadly the top rated Arctic Cooling Accelero Xtreme Plus is not compatible. that would have been my first choice even tough its expensive.

It will be used in the following system:

CPU: Intel Core i7-2500k
CPU Heatsink: Prolimatech Genesis with 2 fans 5-7v
Motherboard: Asus P8P67 Pro
Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 5850
Power Supply: Seasonic X560
SSD: OCZ Vertex 3
HD: Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB WD20EARS
Case: Antec P183 V3
Case Fans: Nexus real silent 120 mm @ 5-7v as exhaust in the back (will add another one as intake at the middle HD bay if needed)

Any and all tips highly appreciated!

I'm using the Gelid Icy Vision and it works pretty well on my 6850. The 5850 is a bit hotter, but I don't imagine it to be that huge of a deal.

I also heard good things about the Twin Turbo PRO by Arctic Cooling.

Accelero S1 with some fan is a good match, even if you have to bend the end of a few fins to clear the DVI connector. Depending on what kind of cooler is on the card now you might be able to use the bottom heatplate from the original cooler together with the S1, as I do with mine. There are some threads on this matchup from back when the 5850's were new.

I have an Accelero S1 + a 120mm Nexus @ 5V on my 5850. It is a very quiet solution and significantly reduced my cards operating temp compared to the stock cooler (I think you could get away with fully passive if your case has good airflow).

Depending on the layout of your cards PCB you may have to do some minor modifications to make it work:

1) You may have to bend/cut a few fins of the Accelero to avoid the DVI connectors of your card

2) You may need to cut/remove the spacers that come with the Accelero as the GPU die on the reference card is a little shorter than the stock spacers and so contact between the GPU and Accelero is prevented. It worth cleaning off the thermal paste and checking if full contact is made:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2313/451 ... 4a42_o.jpg

Thanks for the suggestions!

I have been reading up on some of your suggestions and these are my thoughts:

How do you control the fans on the coolers? Can you connect them to the graphics card and have them spin up at load or can they work at low voltage all the time?

The Gelid Icy Vision seems like good choice. Its main drawback is that it's expensive.

The Accelero S1 Rev 2 is certainly cheaper even if I include a Nexus fan in the price. The modding required to fit it on the 5850 seems easy enough even for me. But I have read it might have trouble cooling the VRM:s so the card throttles the clocks while playing. Any thoughts on this?

Another option I have found is the Accelero TWIN TURBO Pro But I don't know how good that one is compared to the other 2.

I must say I am leaning towards the Accelero S1 Rev 2 since I can use a Nexus fan on that which I know and trust. But I'll keep on reading and considering all input.

One thing to watch out for with the Accelero S1 is that (I believe) it becomes 3-slot if you mount a 25mm fan under it. Can anyone confirm this?

I have just found out that a new version of "Arctic Cooling Accelero Xtreme Plus", called simply "Arctic Cooling Accelero Xtreme Plus II" witch has compatibility for the 5850. I posted about it here: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=62304

I guess I will try and live with the stock cooler and see if I can't snag one of these when they come out. The listed price is high tough, almost half of the price of my video card

I can only speak from my experience, but I can say I have never had this issue.

As a little background I should say my 5850 is a Sapphire Vapor-X which has a slightly different PCB layout and has a VRM heatsinks attached (the bottom card in this pic):

http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/vid ... ompare.jpg

However it you attach the VRM heatsinks I doubt you will have any issues as I believe an Accelero S1 with a nexus fan attached will be pushing more air over your VRMs than the little fan on your stock cooler did.

Sadly my card does not have any VRM temperature probes so I cannot give you exact temps however I did a little benchmarking before and after attaching the Accelero which clearly show no throttling. I benchmarked my cards at quite a high overclock with the following results:

Clock Speed: 875MHz
Memory Speed: 1125MHz

Max GPU Temp (Vapor-X): 72 deg
3DMark (Vapor-X): 15764
http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/yy78 ... X_OC-1.png

Max GPU Temp (Accelero S1): 61 deg
3DMark (Accelero S1): 15768
http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/yy78 ... 1_OC-1.png

So you can see that no throttling occurs (essentially the same 3DMark) however my core temp is significantly reduced. And the Vapor-X cooler is pretty good as it is, a stock cooler would probably be at 80-90deg at those clocks.



Correct (I think). I will check my PC tonight. You could use a 12mm fan to make it dual slot I think?

Ratty your VRM heatsink seems to be a one piece HS which as I understand it seems to work better for VRM cooling. The VRM HS that comes with the Accelero seems to be of inferior quality. Even so since I have found the Accelero S1 rev 2 for about 8$, which is so cheap, I decided to buy 2 and try them out.



Well the alternatives;Gelid Icy Vision and the Arctic Cooling Accelero Xtreme Plus II are both 3-slot as well I believe.

Thanks again for the help!