A new king for VGA air-cooling? Thermalright V1 - 80mm fan!

biodome · Post by **biodome** » Mon Jun 13, 2005 7:55 am

Hey guys!!

I've been a lurker of these forums recently, and I've come uppon a review which i figured most of you would be interested in..

Thermalright, the maker of the beloved XP-120 and many other great CPU coolers, is going to enter the VGA coolers arena, and they gonna do it with a bang!

SystemCooling has the first word and review of their new cooler, the Thermalright V1:
http://www.systemcooling.com/thermalright_v1-01.html

If you'll go into the review you will notice this cooler can be fitted with pretty much any 80mm fan!
(though the stock fan is 15mm wide)

This cooler will fit the X800 and 6800 series cards for all of us craving the high end gaming experience, and with choosing the right 80mm fan (like a Panaflo or Papst) and some undervolting (if required) i believe we can get a near silent setup!
Heck, look at those temps! Maybe it can even run passively cooled?

btw, notice you can fit TWO 80mm fans on this beast, but i assume that's something most of us will try and avoid.

Those of us looking for a low profile setup for HTPC seems like we'll have to keep on looking, because it seems the heatpipes of this cooler strech pretty far up.

I would really like to see a SPCR review on this cooler, as I always take up on to their word on what's really silent, and what's not.

Cheers everybody!

lenny · Post by **lenny** » Mon Jun 13, 2005 10:15 am

Hi, Biodome. Welcome to SPCR Forums!

The temperatures are indeed impressive. I'd like to know more about this too, though I'm not terribly excited. It just doesn't seem to be a very elegant solution.

HTPC setup : desktop orientation will probably be a not work very well for the heatpipes - the hot end of the heatpipe should not be pointing down.

I can't think of an elegant solution right now that doesn't involve water cooling. At the temperatures current cards run at, I wouldn't want to dump the heat back into the case if I can help it. I have the ACVS, but the inability to swap the fan on the unit and number of reports of dead cards probably means I will not be going that route with my next upgrade - fortunately I don't plan on upgrading within the next year or so, since it would involve motherboard upgrade as well (still on AGP).

biodome · Post by **biodome** » Mon Jun 13, 2005 12:03 pm

I think this can quite contribute to the effort of PC silencing, especially for those of us that look for a good gaming rig.

Right now as i see it most problematic parts to quiet down completly are the video cards, and sometimes the motherboards (depending on the chipset location, like these NF4 that's been giving everyone hard time).

The fact that u can now choose any 80mm and use it to effectivley cool down your VGA looks like a big step in the right direction. Now people will be able to choose whichever card they want, and not just choose one card over the other cause it's passively cooled.

I'm pretty sure i'm gonna get me one of these for the new rig i'm planing on..

hightower · Post by **hightower** » Mon Jun 13, 2005 12:34 pm

The fact you can choose your own fan is superb. I think 2 fans, running 6-700rpm would do a good job on even high end graphics card. But it'll probably be twice the price of a zalman vf700. Looking forward to it, none the less.

thetoad30 · Post by **thetoad30** » Tue Jun 14, 2005 9:48 pm

How difficult is it to remove the stock HSF from the video cards?

Maybe one day, they will make the cards standardized, like the P4 and athlons, and let the USER choose which cooler they want. Bundle a cheap one for those who don't care, but let the user choose which high-end VGA cooler they want.

That would be cool...

len509 · Post by **len509** » Tue Jun 14, 2005 10:07 pm

This was already mentioned here, Best fanless VGA heatsink?. But I guess it deserves its own thread.

lenny · Post by **lenny** » Tue Jun 14, 2005 10:27 pm

thetoad30 wrote:How difficult is it to remove the stock HSF from the video cards?

Maybe one day, they will make the cards standardized, like the P4 and athlons, and let the USER choose which cooler they want. Bundle a cheap one for those who don't care, but let the user choose which high-end VGA cooler they want.

That would be cool...

Depends on the video card. On the 9800 Pro, pretty easy. On some previous generation cards, they are glued on - it's a major pain to remove. No experience with the newer cards with huge heatsinks.

I'm sure the CPU manufacturers will ship CPU with heatsink installed if they can. AMD (and Intel?) will not cover warranty replacement unless you use their heatsink (and TIM).

peterson · Post by **peterson** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 1:32 am

Seems to cool very well but it'll probably be pricey compared to a VF700. And heatsinks for the memory chips seem to be almost impossible to attach. Good initiative by Thermalright though and it'll look good beside their other products

And if you'll decide to make a fan swap you'll probably get off cheaper and as least as well with a fan swap on a VF700. Mine is really quiet. Almost silent

nbac · Post by **nbac** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 2:17 am

peterson wrote:Seems to cool very well but it'll probably be pricey compared to a VF700. And heatsinks for the memory chips seem to be almost impossible to attach. Good initiative by Thermalright though and it'll look good beside their other products

And if you'll decide to make a fan swap you'll probably get off cheaper and as least as well with a fan swap on a VF700. Mine is really quiet. Almost silent

Still using the Nexus 80mm fan? (I haven't had time to test it)

peterson · Post by **peterson** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 3:05 am

Yes. I'm about to stress test it but there seems to some SW-trouble with 3DMark05. I have some other planned changes that i'll present in a while. (w pics of the fan swap)

hazindu · Post by **hazindu** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 12:36 pm

I wonder how effective that thing is with a slow undervolted fan or even no fan on a high end card. It certainly looked impressive on systemcooling's review.
as far as memory heatsinks, their highly overrated.

jamesm · Post by **jamesm** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 1:26 pm

lenny wrote: Depends on the video card. On the 9800 Pro, pretty easy. On some previous generation cards, they are glued on - it's a major pain to remove. No experience with the newer cards with huge heatsinks.

my geforce 3 and geforce 6600 gt had hsf's that were super easy to remove.

clarkkent333 · Post by **clarkkent333** » Wed Jul 06, 2005 1:32 pm

In case anyone is curious about when this will be released, I just got an email from Thermalright saying to expect it around the last week of July.