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Arctic Cooling Twin Turbo II install on GTX 580, with pics

MoodyB

MoodyB

MoodyB

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Hey all,

I decided the other day that the noise at load from my Evga 580's stock cooler was getting on my nerves, so I ordered the Twin Turbo II to replace it.

I would have ordered the Gelid Icy Vision & saved myself £10 due to the lower price & free delivery, but OcUK didn't have any in stock at the time.


Anyway, it's quite big :

IMAG0104.jpg


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Mounting plate installed. This makes placing the ram sinks on the left side easier, as you can see how much clearance you have. The rest were placed on where I thought they should go, going by their size anyway :

IMAG0105.jpg


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Here's the first problem I ran into. The heatsinks I thought should go on the right side vrm's were a little bit too big, causing contact with the components to either side :

IMAG0106.jpg


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So I ended up swapping them around with some of the ram sinks. This gave me 1-2mm clearance between them and the components to either side of the vrm's :

IMAG0108.jpg


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I would highly recommend getting some good thermal tape in place of the G1 glue for fixing the heatsinks. Unless you have the patience of 10 saints that is.

Tedious doesn't begin to describe it.

You have to mix the glue continuously for 5min, and you then have 15min to put it on and place all the heatsinks.

What happens after 15min I've no idea ( self destructs? ) as I was lucky enough to not be disturbed & have the time to do it all within AC's time limit.

Then you leave it all sitting for at least 5 hours.


5 hours! ! !



Even once it the glue has cured, the heatsinks can still move around a little bit. This is a good thing for when it comes to removing them, but bad if you happen to knock one out of place.


So after waiting for the G1 glue to cure, it was time to fit the large heatsink+fans and install to check temps...


And this is when I hit my next snag. The Twin Turbo II I received came with 2.3mm & 4mm spacers but it didn't mention the Gtx 580 on their installation sheet, even though their website says it's compatable.

To confuse the issue even more, there is a revised installation instructions around which do list the Gtx 580, but then go on to mention 2mm & 3.5mm spacers instead...


So I tried the 2.3mm spacers with a 1mm rubber washer underneath to bring it close to the 3.5mm mentioned in the revised instructions. This did work, but I wasn't 100% happy with the mounting.

So removed it again and remounted using GC-Extreme thermal paste.

I'm now using the 4mm spacers without an additional washer. Seems to be working fine but I'm going to email AC later and ask them what's going on.


Anyway, here's the temps at idle & load with the card running at 880core / 1.088v :


[ Cpu core temps were at 30,26,30,27 for both tests, so although maybe not 100% accurate it's good enough a gauge for me ]


Stock cooler Auto fan speed:

Idle in Windows - 34c

Load in Crysis 2 - 74c

Fan Speed - 74%

Fan Rpm - 2940


Twin Turbo 2 low fan speed :

Idle in Windows - 27c

Load in Crysis 2 - 67c

Fan Speed - 40%

Fan Rpm - 1560


Twin Turbo 2 High fan speed :

Idle in Windows - 25c

Load in Crysis 2 - 61c

Fan Speed - 85%

Fan Rpm - 1890


The load temp might not be that much of a reduction over the stock cooler, but what certainly is, is the noise level.

You cannot hear the Twin Turbo II fans at all at 40%. I have 3-4 120mm fans at 900rpm-1200rpm in my case, and the TT fans can't be heard.

At 85% I can just hear them above the case fans.


Do I think it was worth the money?

Most definitely from a sound level viewpoint.

Whether it's any better than the Gelid Icy Vision Rev.2 though I've no idea. It is more expensive, and suprisingly so in some places.

I wouldn't do it just to get lower temps, even though the reduction is ok I guess.

No idea yet if I have any more overclocking headroom but I will check that later.

And there is a chance I don't have it mounted 100% correctly, which could explain the small temp reduction I guess.

I'll see what AC say when I email them and post here if it changes anything.


edit - Sorry w3bbo, all resized now
 
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MoodyB

MoodyB

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Give me 10-15min and I'll put a few up.

Just turned the TT2 fans up to 85% in Precision-X, which equals 1890rpm.

They can just be heard above the case fans now. If you were to turn the in-game volume to speech level you wouldn't hear them.

Load temp in Crysis 2 came down to 61c, so I take back what I said about not buying it for cooling purposes.

A 13c drop compared to the stock cooler is pretty good considering it's hard to hear the TT2 fans at 85%.

Pity I couldn't do a comparison against the Gelid Icy Vision.

Btw, if anyone from Gelid is reading this, I can give you my postal address? :)
 

RavenXXX2

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MoodyB said:
If you have the budget and your card is a reference model, I'd possibly go for the Zalman VF3000F for the 480 :

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/accelero-xtreme-plus-v6000-vf3000,review-32041-6.html

It's a few more £'s than both the Gelid & AC coolers, but the vrm & ram heatsink looks much more substantial, never mind easier to fit.

Looks just as quiet as well from the reviews.
Click to expand...

Then Zalman fan has to be connected to a mobo fan header, I would prefer it to be connected to the card and get fan control that way, less of a mess as well
 

MoodyB

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tommybhoy said:
For lower temps, should have got yourself an AC Extreme
Click to expand...

I would have liked to, but was just out of my budget atm. Couldn't stand the hairdryer noise of the stock cooler any longer & I'd only had it a few days.

And tbh after turning the fans up a bit on the TT2, I'm happier with the cooling than I was.


itchy said:
Good effort they are b*****ds to fit them heat sinks
Click to expand...

That's putting it politely :)


tommybhoy said:
Akasa thermal tape is better for the heatsinks:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=TH-001-AK

Rock solid as well!

OcUK stopped stocking AC's because of the glued heatsinks(supposedly) falling off, but I see they have the Mono Plus for sale now.
Click to expand...

I was going to get some Phoyba thermal tape, but decided to wing it with the glue. Thankfully it has worked so far, but I did have severe doubts.

And I've read quite a few posts of the glued heatsinks falling off. And I can see why.

Waiting 5 hours is pushing it a bit. I expect a few got impateint.
 

MoodyB

MoodyB

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RavenXXX2 said:
Then Zalman fan has to be connected to a mobo fan header, I would prefer it to be connected to the card and get fan control that way, less of a mess as well
Click to expand...

Yeah that's true.

Although having fitted one now, I can honestly say I'd go with the Zalman if I was given a choice between it & the AC Twin Turbo 2 in the future.

The glue / heatsinks were a complete & utter chore.

But I guess that's the downside to it supporting so many different cards out-the-box.
 

Sin_Chase

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Looks good!

Patiently awaiting the new III for the 680. Looks sick!

Edit - Just found out the III will NOT work on a reference card with double stacked power....that's pretty damn lame!
 
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iBSOD

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Installed this on my GTX 465. I used the RAM/VRM sinks that were already on my card though, so I didn't have to wait 5 hours.

Load temp is about 62c and it's completely silent.
 

MoodyB

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psychodil said:
Did this help the overclock on the 580 at all?
Click to expand...

Spent a bit of time tonight trying to get more from the card, and gained 20mhz on the core :p

I'm curious now if the Zalman would allow for a bit extra though, as I expect it would do a better job of cooling the vrm's than the TT 2.

Maybe I'll give it a try if I ever feel flush enough.
 

shreebles

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I signed up to say thanks for this Post, MoodyB.
Set my Sparkle 580 up exactly the way you did, and has been working mostly good so far. The back of the card still gets extremely hot, though. After a gaming session the VRMs will still be so hot that you could fry an egg on them, whereas the core temp will drop back to 35°C which will seem cool in comparison.

I bought the card from someone who had fitted an Accelero Xtreme on it, but it wouldn't fit in my case so I went back to reference cooling which gave me terrible temps of up to 89°C, and that was just gaming, I didn't even bother to try Furmark...

So I got the Twin Turbo and while it does manage to help with core temps it doesn't seem to cool the rest of the components on the PCB that well, especially the VRMs as has been pointed out. Yes the heatsink from the Zalman cooler looks a lot more substantial I agree, I wish it were sold seperately.
I still prefer Arctic's cooler though, I believe that theirs are the only aftermarket solutions that still allow PWM regulation from the card itself. Plus the design and color choice doesn't make me want to gouge my eyes out like Zalmans does.

Also, I'm not sure I can recommend the included G1 thermal glue. I used an eraser (though most of you may call it rubber) on the memory modules and VRMs to make the glue stick better, but still the four little ones fitted to the top right of the chip (next to the big silver capacitor, see image in original post) kept falling off.
And since the two components of the glue came in a plastic packet each, you can not store anything for future use. What I did was take another Ram heatsink, glued it to a piece of thermal pad and stuck it on the top of the PCB, at least it can't fall off now, not sure if it helps with cooling at all :rolleyes:


Bottom line is I'm keeping the cooler, but not the card. I hope the recent trend towards more efficient cards will continue, then I might get good use out of the Twin Turbo in the future. A 7850 PCS+ is on its way, my 580 is going on eBay (with the Xtreme Plus, not the Twin Turbo).
Gotta go with the times :D

PS: Did no OCing whatsoever. Shame on me. The damn card is such a hothead, and guzzles enough energy as it is.

PS2: Pro tip: Edit the BIOS to allow running the fans a little slower. I set my fan limits to 20% and 100%, as opposed to the standard 40 and 85%. Still 36°C during idle and much quieter.
 
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