Anyone put an Artic Cooling NV5 silencer on a BFG 6800GT OC?

I am going to pick up this card today. I previously ran an ATI 9800 Pro
with the Artic Cooling heatsink / fan and I loved it - quiet, effective, and
it blows extra heat out of the case. I'd like to do the same with my new
BFG 6800 GT - but hope that someone else had done it first. Anything that
would make you nervous about voiding the warranty? I figured that replacing
the original heatsink / fan would be possible.

I did it. No problems, but I had to tighten it much more than I thought I
would have to in order to get good contact and lower temps. Now that it is
on right, my temps went down about 10c.



"Name" wrote in message
news:UFujd.581691$8_6.320217@attbi_s04...
I am going to pick up this card today. I previously ran an ATI 9800 Pro
with the Artic Cooling heatsink / fan and I loved it - quiet, effective,
and
it blows extra heat out of the case. I'd like to do the same with my new
BFG 6800 GT - but hope that someone else had done it first. Anything that
would make you nervous about voiding the warranty? I figured that
replacing
the original heatsink / fan would be possible.

The NV5 has copper assembly that is supposed to contact the GPU core and the
memory chips to cool them. It has no adjustability.

If it fits your card, the NV5 is a good product. (Fortunately, it fits my
PNY 6800GT.) Arctic Cooling suggests using heatsink compound to fill any
gaps, which is a less than perfect solution. I've read of at least one
person who filed down the copper that contacts the memory chips until the
unit also contacted the GPU. Sounds tedious.

Some people have managed to break the smallish threaded posts that mount the
unit by over-tightening the mounting nuts. Don't do that.

I don't know what the cooling is like on a BFG card. My PNY card uses the
reference design. On the memory chips, it used some sort of fabric pad
impregnated with a white substance (presumably cheap heatsink compound).
Replacing the pads with Arctic Alumina, and the goop on the GPU with AS5,
lowered temperatures a few degrees. The NV5 worked significantly better,
though: the full-load core temperature dropped by about 10C.

HTH.

Address scrambled. Replace nkbob with bobkn.

"Name" wrote in message
news:UFujd.581691$8_6.320217@attbi_s04...
I am going to pick up this card today. I previously ran an ATI 9800 Pro
with the Artic Cooling heatsink / fan and I loved it - quiet, effective,
and
it blows extra heat out of the case. I'd like to do the same with my new
BFG 6800 GT - but hope that someone else had done it first. Anything that
would make you nervous about voiding the warranty? I figured that
replacing
the original heatsink / fan would be possible.

"Name" wrote in message
news:UFujd.581691$8_6.320217@attbi_s04...
I am going to pick up this card today. I previously ran an ATI 9800 Pro
with the Artic Cooling heatsink / fan and I loved it - quiet, effective,
and
it blows extra heat out of the case. I'd like to do the same with my new
BFG 6800 GT - but hope that someone else had done it first. Anything that
would make you nervous about voiding the warranty? I figured that
replacing
the original heatsink / fan would be possible.


I did it too. (Incidentally, my last card was a 9700 Pro, to which I had
fitted a VGA Silencer too.)

Its very easy to do, but its a little more fussy than with the 9800Pro.
This is because the VGA Silencer for the 6800 - in contrast to the old ATI
version - also contacts the ram chips. Whereas this is A Good Thing(tm), it
can be tricky to get everything making good contact. You will probably need
quite a lot of Artic Silver - I know I did. And the first time you fit the
VGA Silencer you may well find that one or more of the ram chips isn't
making good contact and you may have to remove the whole thing to apply more
AS. Took me a while to get it all sitting square.

The screws that hold the Silencer on are also quite pathetic and there have
been stories of people breaking the screws. Just be careful and for
goodness sake, use a small screwdriver and only your thumb and index finger
to tighten them. Then you shouldn't have a problem.

Good luck - its worth it. 10+ C lower temps and complete silent. Can't be
bad :-)

(Incidentally, having fitted the Silencer I felt brave enough to increase my
core voltage to 1.4v. This has bumped my overclock from 420 ish to 453MHz.
Even running RTHDRIBL at 453/1120, my temps peak at "only" 72C. Normal
gaming at 440/110 leaves temps in mid 60's.)

Chip

"Chip" wrote in message
...

"Name" wrote in message
news:UFujd.581691$8_6.320217@attbi_s04...
I am going to pick up this card today. I previously ran an ATI 9800 Pro
with the Artic Cooling heatsink / fan and I loved it - quiet, effective,
and
it blows extra heat out of the case. I'd like to do the same with my new
BFG 6800 GT - but hope that someone else had done it first. Anything
that
would make you nervous about voiding the warranty? I figured that
replacing
the original heatsink / fan would be possible.


I did it too. (Incidentally, my last card was a 9700 Pro, to which I had
fitted a VGA Silencer too.)

Its very easy to do, but its a little more fussy than with the 9800Pro.
This is because the VGA Silencer for the 6800 - in contrast to the old ATI
version - also contacts the ram chips. Whereas this is A Good Thing(tm),
it can be tricky to get everything making good contact. You will probably
need quite a lot of Artic Silver - I know I did. And the first time you
fit the VGA Silencer you may well find that one or more of the ram chips
isn't making good contact and you may have to remove the whole thing to
apply more AS. Took me a while to get it all sitting square.

The screws that hold the Silencer on are also quite pathetic and there
have been stories of people breaking the screws. Just be careful and for
goodness sake, use a small screwdriver and only your thumb and index
finger to tighten them. Then you shouldn't have a problem.

Good luck - its worth it. 10+ C lower temps and complete silent. Can't
be bad :-)

(Incidentally, having fitted the Silencer I felt brave enough to increase
my core voltage to 1.4v. This has bumped my overclock from 420 ish to
453MHz. Even running RTHDRIBL at 453/1120, my temps peak at "only" 72C.
Normal gaming at 440/110 leaves temps in mid 60's.)

Chip


Did you bring core voltage up by flashing the bios?

"Les" wrote in message ...

"Chip" wrote in message
...

"Name" wrote in message
news:UFujd.581691$8_6.320217@attbi_s04...
I am going to pick up this card today. I previously ran an ATI 9800 Pro
with the Artic Cooling heatsink / fan and I loved it - quiet, effective,
and
it blows extra heat out of the case. I'd like to do the same with my
new
BFG 6800 GT - but hope that someone else had done it first. Anything
that
would make you nervous about voiding the warranty? I figured that
replacing
the original heatsink / fan would be possible.


I did it too. (Incidentally, my last card was a 9700 Pro, to which I had
fitted a VGA Silencer too.)

Its very easy to do, but its a little more fussy than with the 9800Pro.
This is because the VGA Silencer for the 6800 - in contrast to the old
ATI version - also contacts the ram chips. Whereas this is A Good
Thing(tm), it can be tricky to get everything making good contact. You
will probably need quite a lot of Artic Silver - I know I did. And the
first time you fit the VGA Silencer you may well find that one or more of
the ram chips isn't making good contact and you may have to remove the
whole thing to apply more AS. Took me a while to get it all sitting
square.

The screws that hold the Silencer on are also quite pathetic and there
have been stories of people breaking the screws. Just be careful and for
goodness sake, use a small screwdriver and only your thumb and index
finger to tighten them. Then you shouldn't have a problem.

Good luck - its worth it. 10+ C lower temps and complete silent. Can't
be bad :-)

(Incidentally, having fitted the Silencer I felt brave enough to increase
my core voltage to 1.4v. This has bumped my overclock from 420 ish to
453MHz. Even running RTHDRIBL at 453/1120, my temps peak at "only" 72C.
Normal gaming at 440/110 leaves temps in mid 60's.)

Chip


Did you bring core voltage up by flashing the bios?


Yup. It was dead easy. Only took a couple of minutes, including editing
the original file.

Chip.

I have that exact card.
Added the NV5 silencer easily.
Use thick coating of that goop on RAM chips and Core.
Dropped my temps (core and ambient) by 10 degrees C.
Quieter now, too.

"Name" wrote in message
news:UFujd.581691$8_6.320217@attbi_s04...
I am going to pick up this card today. I previously ran an ATI 9800 Pro
with the Artic Cooling heatsink / fan and I loved it - quiet, effective,
and
it blows extra heat out of the case. I'd like to do the same with my new
BFG 6800 GT - but hope that someone else had done it first. Anything that
would make you nervous about voiding the warranty? I figured that
replacing
the original heatsink / fan would be possible.