DKS
Damn Kidney Stones
Premium,ExMod 2002
join:2001-03-22
Owen Sound, ON
clubs:
 ·Bell Sympatico
| 8800 GT and Zalman VF900-Cu
Last week my Galaxy 8800 GT arrived. The installation story can be found here: »8800 GT Install
This card is well known for running hot. The huge heat shield that covers the face of the card pumps out a huge amount of heat. My idle temps were 66C with 72c being seen after gaming. Surely I can do better.
The solution was the Zalman VF900-Cu, which is the plain jane version of that cooler family. I've used it before with good results. I expected similar results this time. this time.
First order of business was to check out what I needed.
This thread over at nV News forums was helpful and showed me it could be done.
»www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthr···t=102371
So I ordered a VF900-Cu from Ncix. It was delivered next day, half a continent away.
So the transplant begins.
--
Need-based health care not greed-based health care. |
|
DKS
Damn Kidney Stones
Premium,ExMod 2002
join:2001-03-22
Owen Sound, ON
clubs:
·Bell Sympatico
| 
12 Screws to Remove | 
Split Open and Nekked | 
All Cleaned Up |
Step 2 was to split the stock cooler away from the card. Lots of thermal pads in evidence.
Step 3 was a thorough cleanup with Isopropyl alcohol (99%). Lots of Q-Tips used.
--
Need-based health care not greed-based health care. |
|
DKS
Damn Kidney Stones
Premium,ExMod 2002
join:2001-03-22
Owen Sound, ON
clubs:
·Bell Sympatico
| reply to DKS
Heat Sinks Installed | 
In the Case | 
All tight |
I applied an appopriate amount of Zalman's own suppplied thermal paste and spread it out thinly. A credit card helps.
Finally the fan unit was installed on the card as per directions and lowered into the case. I did not use the Fanmate controller but connected the fan lead to the motherboard.
Voila! All done!
The difference? The fan is more quiet, but idle GPU temps went from 66C to 48C. Load temps dropped fromn 72C t0 50C. A good and worthwhile investment.
--
Need-based health care not greed-based health care. |
|
rawgerz
In Debt we trust
Premium
join:2004-10-03
Grove City, PA
 ·Sprint Mobile Broa..
| GTS has that same weird fiberglass ram chip paste.
I took mine apart to put AS5 on it all, only to find out the screws aren't threaded all the way up, preventing the HSF from making contact with ANYTHING but those thick pads.
Very fun.
--
You can't make all the people happy all of the time. But it should be common sense to shoot for the majority. |
|
DKS
Damn Kidney Stones
Premium,ExMod 2002
join:2001-03-22
Owen Sound, ON
clubs:
·Bell Sympatico
| said by rawgerz  :GTS has that same weird fiberglass ram chip paste. I took mine apart to put AS5 on it all, only to find out the screws aren't threaded all the way up, preventing the HSF from making contact with ANYTHING but those thick pads. Very fun. Same screws on the 8800 GT. Half threaded.
--
Need-based health care not greed-based health care. |
|
DKS
Damn Kidney Stones
Premium,ExMod 2002
join:2001-03-22
Owen Sound, ON
clubs: | reply to DKS
Temps were 56C after an hour of BF2142. Dropped to 50C quickly. 50C after a 3DMark05 run.
--
Need-based health care not greed-based health care. |
|
RolteC
0h
join:2001-05-20
Fresh Meadows, NY
| Whoa my GTX idles higher then that even with fan at 100%...
54celcius to be exact and can go much much higher when playing a game.
Maybe I should do the same?
Was this easy/plug and play? Where can I buy those parts/maybe better ones? Thanks! |
|
DKS
Damn Kidney Stones
Premium,ExMod 2002
join:2001-03-22
Owen Sound, ON
clubs:
·Bell Sympatico
| said by RolteC :Whoa my GTX idles higher then that even with fan at 100%... 54celcius to be exact and can go much much higher when playing a game. Maybe I should do the same? Was this easy/plug and play? Where can I buy those parts/maybe better ones? Thanks! Was it easy? Yes. Zalman gives good instructions. I get my parts through NCIX in Vancouver. I needed four additional heat sinks for the mosfets, but you can get them from Zalman, too. Zalman's quality is excellent.
--
Need-based health care not greed-based health care. |
|
m8trix
join:2003-12-24
Phoenix, AZ | reply to DKS
for anyone as most dont know is the heatsink on the 8800GT only runs at 29% and wont throttle up when temps increase.use reva tuner and bump the fan speed up to 40-50% and you temps will stay at 50c-55c and its no louder then the 29% level |
|
DKS
Damn Kidney Stones
Premium,ExMod 2002
join:2001-03-22
Owen Sound, ON
clubs:
·Bell Sympatico
| said by m8trix :for anyone as most dont know is the heatsink on the 8800GT only runs at 29% and wont throttle up when temps increase.use reva tuner and bump the fan speed up to 40-50% and you temps will stay at 50c-55c and its no louder then the 29% level That's right. You can also use nTune to control the fan directly.
--
Need-based health care not greed-based health care. |
|
Wolfie00
Premium
join:2005-03-12
| reply to DKS
Nice thread, DKS , thanks for the info.
Although when I first saw it I thought all this extra cooling was in preparation for overclocking and was anxious to see the results.  Son tried overclocking the XFX 8800GT on our new build and it seemed stable for an hour or two but it clearly was not as we got a crash. My suspicion is that the overclockable 8800GT chipsets are being carefully cherry-picked and then sold as such at premium prices (like the various eVGA factory-overclocked versions of this chipset).
--
"Against stupidity, the very gods themselves contend in vain" -- Friedrich Schiller
|
|
DKS
Damn Kidney Stones
Premium,ExMod 2002
join:2001-03-22
Owen Sound, ON
clubs:
·Bell Sympatico
| 
Galaxy 8800 GT |
said by Wolfie00 :Nice thread, DKS , thanks for the info. Although when I first saw it I thought all this extra cooling was in preparation for overclocking and was anxious to see the results. Son tried overclocking the XFX 8800GT on our new build and it seemed stable for an hour or two but it clearly was not as we got a crash. My suspicion is that the overclockable 8800GT chipsets are being carefully cherry-picked and then sold as such at premium prices (like the various eVGA factory-overclocked versions of this chipset). Glad you enjoyed it. I could overclock the card, but I agree.The good chips are being culled for factory overclocking. At the same time, this card is already overclocked over the nVidia reference card.
Nvidia Reference Specs
Galaxy has this card running with 64 GB of memory bandwidth as opposed to reference 57 GB. Memory is also double clocked to 2000 mHz as opposed to reference 1800 mHz.
--
Need-based health care not greed-based health care. |
|
Dream Killer
Graveyard Shift
Premium
join:2002-08-09
Forest Hills, NY
clubs:
 ·RoadRunner Cable
edit:
December 4th, @04:10AM
| reply to RolteC
Stock 8800GTS cooler | 
VF1000+ZM-RHS88 | 
Highly overclocked settings | |
said by RolteC :Whoa my GTX idles higher then that even with fan at 100%... 54celcius to be exact and can go much much higher when playing a game. Maybe I should do the same? Was this easy/plug and play? Where can I buy those parts/maybe better ones? Thanks! You can't run the VF900 on the GTS/GTX - It's not designed for such high thermal loads. You have to use the Zalman ZM-RHS88 and VF1000 set. I have it on my 8800GTS 640 and it idles at 52C and loads at 72C while overclocked. That's on silent fan settings. On 100% fan, the VF1000+ZM-RHS88 barely makes 64C at full load.
As for the pictures, they were a before/after screenshot. Please note that the stock cooler is at 75% duty cycle and not the normal 60% - otherwise it'll show around 90C at load. |
|
DKS
Damn Kidney Stones
Premium,ExMod 2002
join:2001-03-22
Owen Sound, ON
clubs:
·Bell Sympatico
| said by Dream Killer :You can't run the VF900 on the GTS/GTX - It's not designed for such high thermal loads. You have to use the Zalman ZM-RHS88 and VF1000 set. What causes you to say that the VF900-CU can't handle the heat of the GTS/GTX?
--
Need-based health care not greed-based health care. |
|
Dream Killer
Graveyard Shift
Premium
join:2002-08-09
Forest Hills, NY
clubs:
·RoadRunner Cable
edit:
December 4th, @03:26PM
| said by DKS :said by Dream Killer :You can't run the VF900 on the GTS/GTX - It's not designed for such high thermal loads. You have to use the Zalman ZM-RHS88 and VF1000 set. What causes you to say that the VF900-CU can't handle the heat of the GTS/GTX? »www.silentpcreview.com/article769-page5.html
Worlds apart in terms of cooling performance. If the VF900 is lagging behind that badly, a GTS/GTX stock cooler would probably better than the VF900. You have to remember that the VF900 was designed for GPUs with small die size, the GTS/GTX's die size are a lot larger than previous generation GPUs.
Don't get me wrong, I love the VF900. I had it on my 6800GT and it was amazing. It's just not the right cooler for the GTS/GTX.
Note that the X1950XTX loaded at around the same temp as my 8800GTS with its stock cooler (page 4).
EDIT: Besides, the VF900 won't physically fit on the GTS/GTX. The mounting holes are farther apart than what the VF900 could reach. |
|
DKS
Damn Kidney Stones
Premium,ExMod 2002
join:2001-03-22
Owen Sound, ON
clubs:
·Bell Sympatico
| said by Dream Killer : Worlds apart in terms of cooling performance. If the VF900 is lagging behind that badly, a GTS/GTX stock cooler would probably better than the VF900. You have to remember that the VF900 was designed for GPUs with small die size, the GTS/GTX's die size are a lot larger than previous generation GPUs. Because it won't work on an ATI card doesn't mean that it won't work and work effectively on the 800 GTS series. A tad disingenuous by the author, I think.
EDIT: Besides, the VF900 won't physically fit on the GTS/GTX. The mounting holes are farther apart than what the VF900 could reach.
That's a legitimate reason.
--
Need-based health care not greed-based health care. |
|
DKS
Damn Kidney Stones
Premium,ExMod 2002
join:2001-03-22
Owen Sound, ON
clubs:
·Bell Sympatico
| reply to DKS
Interesting comments at [H]ardOCP. Overclocking the 8800 GT may be a muggs game.
quote:
The GeForce 8800 GT is a very powerful video card, and when the Add-in-Board partners (AIBs) overclock the GPU and memory speeds, the 8800 GT offers even more incredible performance. If you want a video card that will deliver a very good gaming experience with the latest titles, plus a little bit more, an AIB overclocked GeForce 8800 GT that offers a warranty may just be the ticket. The real question is, “Do any of these OCed card versions truly give you a better gaming experience?” The fact of the matter is that we can’t see anything in all of our testing that proves that. While we did not directly include a comparison here, you can go back through the last 7 articles on this page to find some performance comparisons. We just can’t find any compelling gaming experiences to tell you that the OCed cards are better. You will surely eek out few extra frames, but these OCed 8800 GT cards are not going to facilitate a higher resolution or quality setting in real world gaming. Benchmarks will however show you another story. So it all depends on whether you are a benchmark monkey or a gamer, or where you lie in between.
emphasis added
--
Need-based health care not greed-based health care. |
|
Wolfie00
Premium
join:2005-03-12
| reply to DKS
said by DKS :I needed four additional heat sinks for the mosfets, but you can get them from Zalman, too. Zalman's quality is excellent. For what it's worth, the Zalman's "8-pack" heatsink package is not what you might expect. The VF900 does indeed come with 8 identical memory heatsinks of the kind pictured here. But the heatsink package comes with 4 of those, and 4 others that have the same footprint but are much taller. Not that that's an issue for the MOSFET's but just an FYI -- this is not a replacement for the included heatsink set. I also got (from NCIX) the 4-pack of Swiftech MC21 aluminum heatsinks which might be a better fit on some of the chips. That gives me more than enough to play around with on the MOSFET's. All of them come with thermal tape pre-attached.
--
"Against stupidity, the very gods themselves contend in vain" -- Friedrich Schiller
|
|
DKS
Damn Kidney Stones
Premium,ExMod 2002
join:2001-03-22
Owen Sound, ON
clubs:
·Bell Sympatico
| reply to DKS
Above is a temp graph during a session of BF2142 with everything turned up. I think you can see the cooler temps and the relative stability over the stock cooler.
--
Need-based health care not greed-based health care. |
|
enigmata
join:2002-09-23
| Just wanted to say thanks for doing this thread DKS. I have two 8800GT in SLi and have VF900-Cu coolers on both of them. Previously, the first card would be at 60 C idle / 85 C load, and the card lower in the case would be at 65 C idle / 86 C load.
With the coolers installed, both run at 43 C idle / 55 C load approximately (overclocked to 700MHz core / 1000 MHz memory each). While expensive, these coolers definitely do their job.
The increased performance shows both on the ingame benches and the 3dmark06. On the Crysis GPU test, using the 169.10 drivers, I get about 31-32 FPS ingame FPS on stock clocks. With the overclock, I get about 36-37 FPS.
From my experience, the card's not very stable above 725MHz... (I get blue screens / artifacting during the benchmarks) so I haven't tried anything higher than that.
Just my 0.02. Hope it helps anyone out there. |
|
