Good cooler for Radeon 9600XT?

Cerb · Post by **Cerb** » Fri Jun 01, 2007 9:44 am

I have a 9600XT, and due to the power cable in my FX being the bane of many ducts and tinkering, I've thought of trying it again, especially since I think its trouble is its fan.

But...what's a good cooler that I can get where I can either use my own 80mm fan, or run passive, other Zalman's ZM80 series (I just don't feel like messing with one)?

The Thermalright V1 looks good right now, but it may not fit. I also really don't want a VGA Silencer or similar, unless it takes a plain 80mm fan.

Barring the V1, does Aerocool's passive one allow room for RAM cooling?

jhhoffma · Post by **jhhoffma** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 4:44 am

Those cards run very cool, just check the size of the stock HSF. You could probably pick up a old, large CPU heatsink, glue it in place and run it passive or mount a slow fan nearby.

Tephras · Post by **Tephras** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 6:49 am

You could use a northbridge heatsink, such as the NB47 from Zalman. See this thread.

flyingsherpa · Post by **flyingsherpa** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 7:12 am

I use a zalman NB32J on my 9600xt, with my own panaflo 80mm pointing right at it. See this thread for pics of my setup and some other similar ones.

Cerb · Post by **Cerb** » Mon Jun 04, 2007 6:02 am

The stock heatsink is plenty heavy, but is one of the ducted ones. I think it relies on the fan too much, on top of having dubious TIM. So, it looks like options are basically limitless. Cool

Tzupy · Post by **Tzupy** » Mon Jun 04, 2007 7:07 am

The VM-101 is still available and able to passively cool cards with twice the power dissipation of the 9600XT:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6835127101

dfrost · Post by **dfrost** » Mon Jun 04, 2007 9:13 am

Tzupy's suggestion of the VM-101 is my methodfor passively cooling a 9600 Pro (with a nearby case fan). I'm glad to see that it is available again.

Cerb · Post by **Cerb** » Mon Jun 04, 2007 12:20 pm

I won't have a nearby fan at all if I can help it, but since your pic clearly shows some RAM heatsinks, it looks like a good way to go (I couldn't recall the model name at the time, but the VM-101 is the one I meant in the OP, at the end).

dfrost · Post by **dfrost** » Mon Jun 04, 2007 3:11 pm

Yes, there are some RAM heatsinks in that photo, but they don't do much, especially for such a low-power VGA, as noted in the photo caption. They were not included with the VM-101. Their only apparent advantage was to give the VM-101 better physical support, thanks to a lucky height coincidence. In fact, they are now not even doing that with my modified VM-101.