What's the Scythe Ninja of VGA coolers? Does it exist?

weemies · Post by **weemies** » Wed May 17, 2006 12:38 pm

I'm looking for the beefiest VGA cooler in existence, in order to make it as quiet as possible. I might also do some overclocking.

I'm hoping for something truly massive, but is Thermaltake V-1 Ultra the closest thing? Is it possible to use 120mm fans with it? Maybe with some modding? I love Zalman's VF700-CU, especially the design and the ease of installation, but I do believe it loses quite a bit in performance compared to V-1 Ultra.

Any ideas?

Fat_bloater_dave · Post by **Fat_bloater_dave** » Wed May 17, 2006 1:03 pm

The Aerocool VM-102 is pretty large for a GPU Heatsink.

Entropicity · Post by **Entropicity** » Wed May 17, 2006 6:45 pm

Should be the Sytrin VF1

BrianE · Post by **BrianE** » Wed May 17, 2006 7:21 pm

Honestly, I can't really think of any current VGA cooler that is really the equivalent of the Ninja. The principle of the Ninja is that it is designed for passive cooling utilizing tons of heat pipes and large, widely spaced cooling fins. All the current favourite VGA coolers have fairly closely spaced fins that usually need more airflow or even forced air to work well. It's a good thing that GPUs seem to be a lot more heat tolerant than CPUs.

For our purposes we would like bigger coolers with more space between the fins, but I don't know of any coming up. Scythe showed some interesting looking prototypes at CeBit, but so far (AFAIK) they haven't made plans to introduce them.

Besides the Aerocool and Thermalright offerings, Zalman has their new VF900 cooler, but I haven't researched that one much myself (yet).

diver · Post by **diver** » Wed May 17, 2006 7:58 pm

The Ninja, as good as it is and I have one, is only good in the right application. For example, it will not work in many HTPC cases. So it is with VGA coolers, even more so. The Accelero X series cools very well, but willnot fit all cards. The VF900 is excellent, but may not be the best one for the very hottest cards. Some of the coolers will allow SLI, some are too large, and so on. It really depends on what you are using. Think system, not single component.

Igor · Post by **Igor** » Thu May 18, 2006 1:24 am

diver wrote:The VF900 is excellent, but may not be the best one for the very hottest cards.

Works fine on X1800XT @ PE with the fanmate set to minimum. Doesn't get any hotter than with the original cooler. Idle temps are actually a lot lower. Of course something with direct exhaust would be better.

weemies · Post by **weemies** » Thu May 18, 2006 4:05 am

Ok, I've been doing some reading and I'm thinking I should go passive. So what's the best passive gpu cooler out there? Are there any comparison reviews?

diver · Post by **diver** » Thu May 18, 2006 8:25 am

What VGA card are you going to put this passive cooler on?

No one can give you a legitimate answer to your question until they know what your application is.

diver · Post by **diver** » Thu May 18, 2006 8:29 am

Igor:

For very hottest cards I had the 1900 series in mind. There are reports elsewhere that the VF900 did not work well on those. Overall, I think it is one of the better coolers available, but I like the Accelero X series more, if it happens to fit, and I wait with baited breath for the Accelero S series passive coolers.

weemies · Post by **weemies** » Thu May 18, 2006 9:37 am

Well currently it would be cooling an XFX 7800GT, and possibly a 7900GT in the future if I decide to get one. Here are some other relevant specs:
Case: Antec P180
CPU: AMD X2 3800+ w/ a Scythe Ninja sitting on top of it (w/ a nexus 120mm fan undervolted)
I also have a 120mm nexus fan as a rear exhaust fan.

Engine · Post by **Engine** » Thu May 18, 2006 10:36 am

I use the VF900, and its performance is exceptional, although it's on an old Radeon 9700 Pro - hot for its time, but I believe relatively somewhat cooler than, say, the 7900GT. However, I believe it has been passed in terms of both performance and [lack of] audibility by the new Accelero X1 and X2. However, I don't have personal experience to back that up; I would like to see [hear] a comprehensive review of the Accelero X series by, say, for instance, SPCR.

diver · Post by **diver** » Thu May 18, 2006 12:37 pm

For the 7800GT a passive cooler is probably going to need a fan blowing on it, in which case it will no longer be passive. The Accelero X series is a good bet for that one.

Some members have managed to get the 7900GT to run with a passive cooler, but I consider it to be a stretch. The Accelero X series does not fit this one, making the VF900 a good choice. I like the VF900 because its mounting system is very secure. I do not know of a single passive cooler with a good mounting system. Perhaps someone else does. IMO the mount for the Zalman ZM80D-HP is not very good, and a number of other passive coolers share a similar mounting system.

Madshrimps did a review of the VF900, Accelero and some other coolers, which I feel is one of the best reviews available for the latest VGA coolers.

Some members like the V1 Ultra, but it needs a fan swap according to those that use it.

Igor · Post by **Igor** » Thu May 18, 2006 9:59 pm

diver wrote:Igor:

For very hottest cards I had the 1900 series in mind. There are reports elsewhere that the VF900 did not work well on those.

AFAIK the difference in power consumption between an overclocked 1800XT (such as mine) and a stock 1900XTX isn't that big.

Based on the reports that I've read about the VF-900 with 1800XT I'd say that it's cooling capabilities depend heavily on case ventilation. If you don't have an intake fan blowing to the general direction of the VGA card, your temps will probably be somewhere between horrible and disastrous... The stock cooler works even if there is no intake fan because it acts as an exhaust fan. That's probably the reason why some ppl report that the VF-900 is not as effective as the stock cooler on 1800XT (& 1900 series).

nutball · Post by **nutball** » Thu May 18, 2006 11:39 pm

weemies wrote:Well currently it would be cooling an XFX 7800GT, and possibly a 7900GT in the future if I decide to get one.

The Aerocool copes just fine with a 7900GT so long as you ensure there's some airflow over it. It doesn't necessarily need a dedicated fan, but moving air over it will help. I'm using a single fan to cool the CPU + GPU, whether you choose to call that active or passive cooling of the GPU is semantics IMO!

datapappan · Post by **datapappan** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 3:33 am

http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/hard ... vergleich/
(In German, but graphs are understandable even for us English speakers)

From another thread / datapppan