It's true.
I have an ATI 4890 card, not clocked.
I bought a ThermalRight T-Rad2 to try to silence and cool my GPU. Neither worked.
The GPU idles @ 60c after a shutdown and some cooling then a boot.
The GPU reaches 100c+ if you run the simplest games (WoW for example). After you shut down the game, it idles @ 69c until you shutdown.
I mounted two Noctua 92 mm @ 1600 rpm, turned off Smart Fan so that they're always at full speed.
I've tried flipping the fans, does little difference. I've tried flipping all other fans above, on the side etc of the T-Rad2, nothing helps.
I've tried applying a thin layer of cooling paste, a think layer, all kinds, nothing helps. Still fries my GPU and makes noice like you wouldn't believe.
This is much, much worse than the stock cooler that comes with the card.
Don't buy this heat sink.
ThermalRight T-Rad2, worse than stock cooler.
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
Well I have the T-Rad2 on my ATI 5870 but using a single 120mm fan running at a much slower 750rpm.
Temps idle at less than 38c and then goes up and stabilizes at 88c under prolonged extreme load (i.e furmark). That's pretty average but because I'm deliberately undervolting the single fan to keep noise down. If I had two 92mm fans running at 1600rpm (which is unacceptably noisy for me), these temps would be better.
The 5870 is also a high end card, so there should not be that much of a difference.
You may either [A] have a defective cooler or it's not making proper contact with your GPU or [C] terrible airflow in your case or [D] some other unknown problem. If you've done everything you can, I'd RMA the cooler as potentially defective.
Temps idle at less than 38c and then goes up and stabilizes at 88c under prolonged extreme load (i.e furmark). That's pretty average but because I'm deliberately undervolting the single fan to keep noise down. If I had two 92mm fans running at 1600rpm (which is unacceptably noisy for me), these temps would be better.
The 5870 is also a high end card, so there should not be that much of a difference.
You may either [A] have a defective cooler or it's not making proper contact with your GPU or [C] terrible airflow in your case or [D] some other unknown problem. If you've done everything you can, I'd RMA the cooler as potentially defective.
I have an XFX 5850 Black Edition with a T-Rad2, a VRM-R4, and a Scythe S-Flex 800RPM and I'm getting 38C idle and 75C load, and that load temperature is from Furmark with Xtreme Burning Mode on. There is definitely something wrong with your cooler. I'm with echn111 in recommending an RMA of the cooler.
