Sapphire HD6670 Ultimate F[a]nless Card in Single Fan Chasis

[mariner8611]

Greetings.

I'm thinking of replacing the Sapphire HD6670 DDR5 with the Ultimate fan less version, in a system that is cooled by a single Slipstrteam fan attached to the CPU cooler running at 750rpm.

Butterfly.JPG

1. The system is used mainly for video playback, blu-ray and high bit rate 60fps stuff. I had tried and returned the fan less HIS 6570 because of temperature reaching the high 70's.

Would the Sapphire be much cooler, perhaps in the 60's?

2.As a comparison, the temperature of the current setup running the Furmark benchmark test is 70.

What would be considered acceptable for the Ultimate version?

3. If an additional fan is required, should it be attached to the graphics card or mounted at the top opening?

What should be the orientation of the fan, blowing at the card or away?

Many thanks and best regards.

[Tetreb]

1. The system is used mainly for video playback, blu-ray and high bit rate 60fps stuff. I had tried and returned the fan less HIS 6570 because of temperature reaching the high 70's.

Would the Sapphire be much cooler, perhaps in the 60's?

2.As a comparison, the temperature of the current setup running the Furmark benchmark test is 70.

What would be considered acceptable for the Ultimate version?

3. If an additional fan is required, should it be attached to the graphics card or mounted at the top opening?

What should be the orientation of the fan, blowing at the card or away?

Many thanks and best regards.

The fanless will probably run hotter. A fan low RPM fan directly mounted to it would help a lot. However the best way to lower temps is to undervolt it, if possible.

Why do you test Furmark for a PC playing movies? If it doesn't exceed 70° during Furmark, the cooling is very good already, as the card can take even more. Look at temps during playback.

A fan at the top of the case wouldn't cool the card itself much more, but still I got a burned motherboard once because hot air got trapped in a corner, so any airflow is always good.

[ntavlas]

70 degrees in furmark is fine. To put it in perspective, most manufacturers put 80 degrees c as the default target temperature. Either way, you won`t be seeing this temperature in real use as games come nowhere near furmark in stressing the gpu.

Do you want to switch to a passive card because your current one is noisy? If this is the case you could try changing the fan to something with a better airflow to noise ratio.
I have a hd4670 with the same cooler (a rebadged arctic cooling heatsink & fan) and I remember the fan being rather noisy and rough sounding even at moderate speeds. A fan swap was enough to make it quiet: I used a 80mm fan @ 6 volts (1000ish rpm) and got around 76 degrees c running furmark. Now the 6670 does use a bit more power but you could compensate by using a slightly larger 92mm fan. The end result should be barely louder than your 750rpm cpu fan.

[ces]

Why not put at 500rpm fan at the top. It shouldn't make much noise and it will help with the cooling. And even if one of the two fans fails... you will still have some cooling left.

[mariner8611]

Greetings and thanks for all your kind replies.

@Tetreb
1. I use Furmark and IntelBurnTest to gauge the effectiveness of the cooling arrangement, as they seem to give the system a good workout. I'm not familiar with these programs, so if you have suggestions for something that stress the system even more, I'll give it a try.

2. SPCR's ref. 120mm Slipstream can produce an airflow of 20CFM@18db noise level. How much CFM do you recon is required here?

3. Given the proximity of card to the top cut out, would it make much difference if the fan is mounted on the casing
instead of being strapped to the card?

4. If the fan is mounted at the top, you believe it is more effective blowing at the card. If so, is it necessary to provide more openings for hot air exhaust?

@ntavlas

The 6670's cooler is quite good, barely audible at idle. Still, a hint of the bearing noise can be detected if duty cycles goes above 55%. What kind of replacement fans do you have in mind, and how would you attach it to the card?

By the way, do you know if CCC's fan speed control work?

@ces
I have a medium speed 140mm Kaze Maru 2 that's probably good for 15cfm running at 5V (650rpm). Will give it a try. Again, is the consensus to have the fan blow at the card?

Many thanks and best regards.

[ntavlas]

The 6670's cooler is quite good, barely audible at idle. Still, a hint of the bearing noise can be detected if duty cycles goes above 55%. What kind of replacement fans do you have in mind, and how would you attach it to the card?

By the way, do you know if CCC's fan speed control work?

Indeed, it was mostly bearing noise that made me swap the fan on my 4670. If the stock fan is 4 pin PWM it might be best sticking to PWM and let the card control it. Arctic Cooling makes some decent 92mm PWM fans though any half decent sleeve bearing or FDB fan should be an improvement over stock.
To mount it, I used silicon fan bolts which were friction fit between the heatsink fins. It sounds flimsy but proved quite secure in practice. You could do it too since the heatsink is essentially the same. Zip ties, twist ties or rubber bands are also commonly used.

As for fan control, the best option would be to let the card control the fan. This means either finding an adapter cable (I remember seeing such recently, don`t remember if they were 3 or 4 pin though) or, removing the plug surrounding the pins on the card. I`m not really up to date with CCC so I`ll leave it to others to answer.

3. Given the proximity of card to the top cut out, would it make much difference if the fan is mounted on the casing
instead of being strapped to the card?

Yes, it would. A fan atached to the heatsink will be much more effective in forcing air through the fins, especially at lower speeds when air pressure is lower.

[Tetreb]

Low speed fans lowering pressure "against" the fins sounds nice, I never thought about it.

I recently mounted my CPU fan to suck air away from the board (top-blow heatsink). I didn't notice increases in temperature, maybe even helped a little on my low RPM setup. I think slowly blowing relatively hot air from the CPU onto the mainboard isn't a good idea.

@mariner8611: I actually meant that you're overdoing it with Furmark. During movies there will never this kind of power draw. I'd just watch out for trapped hot air in some corner, I lost a mainboard because of that (I used a tower CPU cooler).
Proximity of the fan to anything results in a lot lower air movement, but a low spinning fan can go around it, as ntavlas mentioned. My front intake fans are in the middle of the HDD cage to lower this effect.
With fan control I've had a bit of a problem with starting voltage. My fans are on the border of getting to spin up at boot. Unfortunately no fan controllers out there seem to have a "jumpstart" feature, except one hard to get and expensive model made for water pumps. The CPU connector on the mainboard usually has it.

[mariner8611]

Tested the Ultimate with Furmark. Max GPU temp 75°C.

Should I keep this card? Any other useful tests to perform?