accelero xtreme gtx280 - fanless?

shleepy · Post by **shleepy** » Thu Apr 23, 2009 12:05 pm

I am building (well, virtually built) a new relatively small PC in which I might want to cram a GeForce GTX 285. The card will fit, and even something like an Accelero S1 might theoretically fit as far as heatsink width goes. But my problem is lack of empty PCI-slot-width. As far as I can tell, I wouldn't be able to fit a Thermalright HR-03, regardless of which way I mount in on the card.

The only other option I've found that would fit on a GTX285 is Accelero Xtreme GTX280, but it comes with THREE thin 92mm fans. There's no way that will be quiet enough for my needs... But it's a pretty big heatsink. Would it be reasonable to assume that running the card either passively (with intake fans right next to it) or with a ghetto-mounted quiet standard case fan on it might be enough? I'm thinking I should also put on the Thermalright GTX285 VRM-sink kit, just in case.

PS: Another option would be to strip down THIS version of the GTX285 (by MSI), but I wouldn't feel too comfortable with that without at least a ghetto-mounted ~92mm fan.

that Linux guy · Post by **that Linux guy** » Thu Apr 23, 2009 1:56 pm

After looking at the heatsink and the card, I would try to modify the MSI cooler first. Throw on a a couple 12cm fans and it should be pretty quiet while still cooling enough.

If it isn't cool enough, the Accelero Xtreme with a couple 12cm quiet fans would also do wonderfully.

shleepy · Post by **shleepy** » Thu Apr 23, 2009 2:10 pm

Well, throwing on a couple 120mm fans would keep just about any heatsink cool enough.

I'd definitely like to limit it to 1 extra fan, at most.

One thing I forgot to mention about the MSI card is that I saw a review of it where it doesn't seem to lower temperatures all that much. The Accelero, not surprisingly, does significantly lower temperatures... But of course, it's hard to say if the heatsink is well-designed or if the three big fans are doing all the work.

that Linux guy · Post by **that Linux guy** » Thu Apr 23, 2009 2:32 pm

With these super hot cards, I don't think you'll find a cooler that will cool a high-end card with a single fan and still be quiet.

I've got an HD4870 with a Scythe Musashi, and I'm having trouble keeping the MOSFETs and RAM cool on it. They like to sky-rocket while I'm playing games with the fans on low. The HD4xxx Radeon cards and the GTX 200 series cards all are very hot cards.

I'd get the Accelero Xtreme, and try a single 12cm quiet fan on it. If you aren't happywith the temps then try other things, but try one fan as a starting point.

Tzupy · Post by **Tzupy** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 5:32 am

Have a look at the Xbitlabs article on the Accelero Xtreme 280, link:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cooler ... 280_8.html
While the GPU cooling is superb, although with fans on, the VRM cooling is appaling! So IMO no chance to run it fanless.

Mats · Post by **Mats** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 7:39 am

Check out the GTX 275, it comes very close to the 285 but the price is lower.
Cooling the VRM's seems like the difficult part, even with active cooling.

shleepy · Post by **shleepy** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 9:51 am

Tzupy wrote:Have a look at the Xbitlabs article on the Accelero Xtreme 280, link:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cooler ... 280_8.html
While the GPU cooling is superb, although with fans on, the VRM cooling is appaling! So IMO no chance to run it fanless.

Well, that's why I suggested that I should probably get the Thermalright VRM-sink kit. As for the review, I think it's actually very impressive how well the cooler performs for the GPU at the lower speeds... So maybe a 92mm or 120mm fan that's mounted close to the VRM's would actually be what's required?

Check out the GTX 275, it comes very close to the 285 but the price is lower.

Price isn't really the issue... The computer will have either six or seven SSD's and is running a 30-inch, 2560x1600 monitor, so not having a state-of-the-art video card is almost embarrassing.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the GTX 275 has any incredible power efficiency or temperature advantages, based on the reviews that I've seen.

PS: One potential issue I might have (and I need to double-check) is that the Accelero is actually longer than the card, and therefore might not even fit properly in my case.

thepwner · Post by **thepwner** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 10:03 am

If price isn't an issue try to get the card as cool as you can and just go for broke with purchasing sound proofing mats and the like...if you can't destroy the source of the news, cover the symptoms.

Mats · Post by **Mats** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 10:21 am

shleepy wrote:Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the GTX 275 has any incredible power efficiency or temperature advantages, based on the reviews that I've seen.

As you can see my comment was only about its lower price. I just didn't think the extra 2 - 3 FPS or so would matter much, but YMMV.
If money is no problem then the upcoming single card GTX 295 is a better alternative? Not that it's easier to cool down..

Can you share a pic of the case, showing how small it is?

shleepy · Post by **shleepy** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 2:34 pm

I'll take some pictures when I'm "done" with the first iteration of the build. I just need to get a slim optical drive in the mail in the next couple days (hopefully), so that I can install it and also a couple SSD's, since I'm using a 5.25" bay to slim drive + 3.5" bay adapter, along with a 3.5" bay to 2x 2.5" drive adapter.

This first version of the build has a fanless HD4850 already in it... If it does the job, I might keep it for a while. But I did want to switch to an Nvidia card for the low power consumption at idle, and the GTX285 is great for that. Is there maybe another card that will be coming soon (next few months) that would be roughly as good a performer as GTX285 but potentially easier to cool? It would be great if ATI finally made a HD4800/900 card that uses little power at idle.

(Explanation for why I need low power at idle - I'll be keeping the PC on 24/7... There's a fanless PSU in there, so I'd like to keep its load as low as possible for a couple of reasons.)

Mats · Post by **Mats** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 2:47 pm

I'd keep the 4850 until the new 40 nm cards that will show up this fall. The 285 is a much faster card, but it won't lower the power consumption.

shleepy · Post by **shleepy** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 3:24 pm

Mats wrote:I'd keep the 4850 until the new 40 nm cards that will show up this fall. The 285 is a much faster card, but it won't lower the power consumption.

Yeah, I might just do that... I realize that the HD4850 is actually not too shabby, as far as performance-per-watt goes. But the GTX285 is just a LOT faster (while staying at around the same for the idle power), and that might really matter for 2560x1600. I'm not an uber gamer, per se, and I don't usually play anything super-demanding, like Crysis, but I AM used to my HD4870X2, and going down to HD4850 will be a big drop in performance, even in TF2.

boost · Post by **boost** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 11:42 pm

The MSI Twin Frozr (or SuperPipe cooler) is LOUD! as in vacuum cleaner loud.
All aftermarket coolers for 260-285 GTX do a terrible job at colling the VRMs.
If money is not the issue I'd say go for the Accelero, but you might have to replace the card sooner rather than later when the VRMs give in.

akromatic · Post by **akromatic** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 4:08 pm

has anyone tried stripping the palit/gainward GTX ( ones with dual fan custom cooling ) off its fan and mounting your own quiet 120mm PWM fans?

shleepy · Post by **shleepy** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 4:18 pm

akromatic wrote:has anyone tried stripping the palit/gainward GTX ( ones with dual fan custom cooling ) off its fan and mounting your own quiet 120mm PWM fans?

Where can you even buy these? Presumably not in the US? I saw that Galaxy has a GTX 285 with the Accelero already pre-installed, but it's not available in the US, either.

akromatic · Post by **akromatic** » Fri May 01, 2009 6:12 am

i can get gainward/palit dual fan ones in australia from PC case gear

but im not willing to be a guinea pig

i did think of getting a HR03 but they dont bundled 55nm VRM sinks( its going to be hard to source a shop that stock these) and im not confident that the accelero xtreme gtx would be SPCR silent/ silent enough ( more importantly its added length mite not fit in my case of choice aka SG03)

akromatic · Post by **akromatic** » Sat May 02, 2009 3:29 am

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Pali ... _SP/4.html

this got me thinking about just mounting a 120mm fan to replace the dual fan or installing a HR03 while keeping the stock VRM/ram sinks on

shleepy · Post by **shleepy** » Wed Jun 03, 2009 10:14 am

There was another, more relevant thread where I could have posted this, but I couldn't immediately find it...

The Accelero GTX280 is now available at a lot of US online retailers - just go to google shopping ("froogle") and search for "accelero gtx280." I'll have to measure my case and see if I can fit it (+120mm fan) or an HR-03 GTX (mounted on the back-side) in there.

lodestar · Post by **lodestar** » Wed Jun 03, 2009 3:25 pm

There is no prospect IMO of running a card of the power of the GTX 285 passively. The GTX 285 I have just fitted into a new Core i7 build is admittedly one of the factory-overclocked units running at 702, but flat-out that is showing a temperature of 80 degrees centigrade at 50% fan. It is quiet enough at idle, but any fan noise is inaudible at full load simply because the games being played easily drown it out anyway.

This is perhaps the point, if you really need a GTX 285 then fan noise under load is not likely to be an issue. If it is an issue, then it might be easier to drop back to something like the GTX 260 which is somewhat cooler, and with the addition of the Accelero Xtreme can run at significantly lower temperatures. See this link
http://hardwarebistro.com/index.php?opt ... GTX280[/u]

shleepy · Post by **shleepy** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 11:34 am

lodestar wrote:There is no prospect IMO of running a card of the power of the GTX 285 passively.

That's probably true, but I want to get as close to that as possible.

I "need" the power of a GTX285 because of my 2560x1600 monitor... but I still want to minimize fan noise under load. At 2560x1600, it's not just noisy top-of-the-line first person shooters that need a lot of graphics power, hehe.

I figure that my case would have enough airflow in the video card area that I would be fine with a single 120mm fan spinning on the card (with the accelero gtx280 or hr-03)... and maybe - just maybe - I don't even need that fan, since I have a couple other case fans in close proximity (which would be unlikely, but probably more likely with the hr-03).

yensteel · Post by **yensteel** » Sun Jun 07, 2009 10:04 am

I just found this thread:

http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.asp?m=100 ... #100653728

I hope this helps

cordis · Post by **cordis** » Mon Jun 08, 2009 5:00 pm

I described the install of a thermalright hr-03 gtx on a gtx 285 card in this thread: viewtopic.php?t=53828. It was in a pretty small case, silverstone sg01, so I wound up having to cut a hole in the side for the 120mm fan, but it keeps the thing amazingly cool, I'm folding on it 24/7 and it hardly ever breaks 55 degrees according to speedfan. It's probably not really relevant to your issue, though, if you don't have extra pci slot width. But it is possible to keep a 285 cool and relatively quiet.

shleepy · Post by **shleepy** » Tue Jun 09, 2009 9:49 am

cordis wrote:I described the install of a thermalright hr-03 gtx on a gtx 285 card in this thread: viewtopic.php?t=53828. It was in a pretty small case, silverstone sg01, so I wound up having to cut a hole in the side for the 120mm fan, but it keeps the thing amazingly cool, I'm folding on it 24/7 and it hardly ever breaks 55 degrees according to speedfan. It's probably not really relevant to your issue, though, if you don't have extra pci slot width. But it is possible to keep a 285 cool and relatively quiet.

I ordered an HR-03 GTX yesterday... I'm FAIRLY sure that I can somehow make it fit - either flip it around so that the big part of the heatsink is on the back of the card and/or by switching PCIe slots with the RAID card.

accelero xtreme gtx280 - fanless?

accelero xtreme gtx280 - fanless?

thermalright hr-03 gtx

Re: thermalright hr-03 gtx