maybe it's just becasue it's a pre-production/reference board etc but on every pic I've seen of the FX it's had no fan or heatsink at all - seems odd to me for a next-gen video card - anyone know abt this?

Wishful thinking.

The cards with heatsinks I have seen are loud as hell, take up 2 slots (the AGP slot, and the one below it) for a blower.

http://www.hardocp.com/image.html?image ... 85X2wuanBn

thought so, those things have more transisters than a p4 so I guess it was inevitable.

Any news on if the Zalman range of fanless sinks will work with it, even with a quiet fan? I'd hate to have to throw mine away

I lived with the screaming fan on my GF2 for years until I just tore it off and left the heatsink underneath it. Its been working great for weeks.

I was about to buy that Zalman heatsink thing but considering that the vid card is only worth $50ish I thought I'd risk running with no vid fans.

In 2 years we'll look back at our video cards and won't believe how slow and cool they ran. I'm quite amused at the fans we "needed" for our hot 486-25s..

I was thinking about getting a Zalman northbridge cooler for my 9000 pro...it would be interesting to see how it works.

As long as the stock heatsink has fins above the middle of the chip, not just on the outsides (like my stock 9000 hs ) it should be fine without a fan.

Does anyone know the maximum acceptable temp for GPU's? It probably varies, but does anyone have an idea.

nvidia does not publicly post their datasheets. i have heard from another developer that Tj=85C. take it as hearsay, but 85C for junction temp. is relatively poor, so i doubt it's any lower than that. make a real conservative estimate for thermal characterization, and it would probably be safe to say that measuring from the center of the top of the package should not exceed 75C.

on a side note, the new athlons, sadly, have a new Tj=85C (down from 90C).

I too have been looking at the Zalman northbridge cooler for the GPU. I'm quite sure it would be plenty for my wee lil GeForce2. I'm hoping it will be enough for my parent's ATI All In Wonder, 7500 model I think. It has a tiny little HSF unit, with the fan taking up more space than the heatsink. Would be easier to mount that on the AIW card than the ZM17 gpu cooler (the big flat copper plated one).


Heck... I wonder if that Northbridge cooler would be enough on my GeForce 4 vid card. Put that on there with a 5V Panaflo blowing across it. Something that seems to be recommended for using the ZM80 on a GeForce4 too.


hhmmmmm....


Zyzzyx
- put in charge of quieting his parent's system

since the card genereates so much heat..due to the 1ghz ddr 2 ram it needs the otes style cooling not very quit...

Hmmmmm,
Not too hard of a challenge! As long as the measurements of the video core allow it, slap on a copper base/aluminum fin heatsink on the puppy! Drill holes in the heatsink to match the bolt pattern of the board and put a real heatsink on it. Yep, time to freeze the CPU heatsink in ice and cut away the base to match the size for the board. Put a Panaflow at 7V on the heatsink and forget about it.
OK, you may lose 3 PCI slots, that just means you need to get a mobo with sound, RAID and NIC onboard (something you silent freeks keep missing) the more PCI slots, the bigger the heatsink for the video card! My 950 Athlon runs overclocked at 1064MHz with a cool 40C temp (load at 44C) Case temps are 24C to 27C and that helps the GF2 run at 35C with the PIII cooler on it. OK, the 6,250RPM fan helps I am working on that one... maybe 7V the fan (it is the loudest thing in my computer)
I think I may need to put a stut in the computer to hold up a Volcano7 heatsink on the puppy, yeah...it weighs a ton! Time to shave the fins down and mill the base to lighten it up. Slap that variable speed 80mm fan on it running 1,000 RPM for a quiet and cool video card. Oh yeah, overclock it until the BIOS locks up and back it off.

Do *NOT* use the zalman northbridge heatsink for GPU's! Those things dissapate MAX 4watt. Which is pretty much *nothing* compared to the heat a GPU generates.