Gibbo, Thermalright T-Rad2?

[Clive37]

Its not just the headroom (however small) you will get though, the stock ATI cooler is loud, no doubt about it. I have mine set to 30% and its by far the loudest part of my PC. I hope with this cooler + 2 Red Wing 92mm my rig will be close to silent.

+1

 

[HighlandeR]

Looks lovely, but just as I predicted months ago I doubt we will ever see any decent aftermarket coolers for 4870x2 range. Just doesnt seem to be any demand for such a small user base

Definatly need 260/280 GTX supported ones also....

 

[rjk]

Soooooo


its the 22nd

will i be picking a Trad up on the way home from work?
another forum suggests november now
whats going on?

 

[Gibbo]

Hi there

They have arrived!

Wade in guys, probably won't see any more this year so if you want one in 2008 buy now!

 

[rjk]

could i get one put aside to pick up tonight if i paid now?

or will there be any left if i drive down on my lunch break?

edit*
just called up and sounds like you have plenty!

see you at lunchtime!!!

 

[drunkenmaster]

Is there anything at all being released for cooling a 4870x2 anytime soon? It runs fine and silent at an ok temp idle but in games its running hot unless i set the fan around 45% or higher and realistically I need it to be 55+ as I've had a few driver resets at 45%, but at 45% its by far the loudest thing in my computer and earsplittingly bad even with headphones on at 55%.

When on earth will they ditch the utter crap that is blower fans, there isn't a single well cooled card on earth with one on. I'm assuming nothings coming out though due to low numbers of cards and so is rather a niche market, if nothings coming I might have to resort to water, or a bodge job of removed shroud and fan blowing into it.

 

[rjk]

blower fans are cheap - thats why

i agree that the X2 needs a decent third party cooler option

but look at the 9800GX2 and the other boards with odd layouts - its going to be hard to make a cooler for all cards

 

[drunkenmaster]

yep, thats why i don't hold much hope, though the X2 has to be one of the better selling dual gpu cards and as such might mean someone has the balls to make a cooler for it.

Thermalright are a completely useless company it seems, I have no clue why their product cycle takes so ridiculously long to come into effect. Lots of cards, what end up with a specific version of a cooler(2900xt, the 8800gtx and so on) all end up being released 2-3 months after the card came out and only a couple months before the next card is due which makes it a worthless upgrade. Why they don't have better contact with ati/nvidia in the prerelease stage so they can have working compatible products at release or very soon after I have no clue.

I'm not even sure blowers are that cheap, its not like normal fans are expensive. Its just become like memory heat spreaders, completely useless but "seen" as necessary by the masses so they can't really not produce them.

Amount of people on this forum who think blowers/external exhaust sinks with terrible airflow are the best option is beyond a joke. cases with 120mm fans and plenty of air throughput won't gain a significant amount of heat from not exhausting but can have far more effective gpu cooling. Infact 99% of gfx card buyers use a single slot and rarely use pci/pci-e slots so theres little reason that there aren't triple slot cooler versions as standard. i've rarely had a setup that couldn't take a 5 slot cooler for total silence, perfect cooling and being able to exhaust, through 3-4 pci- slots rather than one. for 5 years at least 99% of us just use onboard audio, network, sata/ide. Its getting ridiculous that basically every gpu can be easily cooled silently and far better than they are currently but 99% of us get terrible cooling because 0.0001% of us use SLi/Xfire and need a slimer cooler.

 

[AtreuS]

Just ordered one for my 8800GT, i have a vortexx neo on it right now but its a bit noisy even on low, and on low it doesnt cool well enough. Ill take it off and keep it aside for when i upgrade this GT to a ati card in the new year then stick it back on the GT.

When it arrives ( the T-Rad2) ill do a quick review and post it up for anyone whos interested.

 

[rjk]

i agree completley
i suppose the only problem they have is board layouts
i saw a guy try a thermalright HR 03 for the 8800gt on his 4870x2
one upside the card and one facing sdown - he made his own mounts for it [will try to find the link but it was a while back]

it really does suck that companies dont work with card manufacturers and board partners to release affordable and effective non reference cooling solutions

the only alternative is to use watercooling but a waterblock is generally a massive expense too!

i personally am getting a Trad as i can see it lasting me for a bit as i dont plan to upgrade my 9800gtx until something worthwhile comes out for the res that i game at


in reference to your comment about blower fans - they must be cheap - they look ok wit hthe plastic shroud on but if you take a card apart you will find that the coolers themselves are not made to a high standard you would expect from other components

i personally would be happy to pay extra for my cards if nvidia and ati released reference models with cooling solutions to match the standard of current third party models

i cant see it happening though as companies like zalman and thermalright would be hit
[ok bad example as most cards with non ref coolers have a zalman sticker on]

but you get my point

 

[rjk]

im going to get one at lunch time and will go home to get my camera and graphics card
[then back to 'work' to build it up]

will post up pics of the cooler and installation

edit* sorry Atreus - didnt see your post

 

[drunkenmaster]

i cant see it happening though as companies like zalman and thermalright would be hit
[ok bad example as most cards with non ref coolers have a zalman sticker on]

but you get my point

Its just a pain, with watercooling, theres still some incompatibility but with a fairly standard DD/swifttech waterblock its fairly easy to get them on new cards and they come out with new mounting brackets coming out pretty quickly.

Something like the ZF900(IIRC) that was around for ages and fine for single gpu cores for a long time, but a little taller(as in more pci slots) but less wide that could really just fit on any core would be fine, but these companies seem obsessed with making them as low profile as possible even though most of the customers have all the space in the world.

I also don't really like the idea, though its tempting of ziptie/ducttape/mcguyver'ing something like the HR03 on as they are fairly expensive and with not even close to an idea if they'd fit on the next card you buy possibly as much as a waste as buying a fullcover watercooling block which you can't reuse.

A simple, massive cheap alu cooler thats tall but not wide would easily cool any gpu but no one damn well makes one

Theres arguably more space for gpu cooling than cpu cooling in what, 95% of systems out there, yet no ones using it. Its so frustrating as I'll probably go watercooling, which is incredibly effective, but more hassel than I want to deal with tbh.

 

[Gibbo]

Hi there

OcUK first with stock in the UK by looks of things again!

 

[Mr Paul]

And the most expensive

 

[Gibbo]

And the most expensive

Hi there

Well would not be surprised when other places get stock arrive the price all of a sudden goes up!
Infact the way the dollar is going expect prices to shoot up everywhere, were at 1.62 today and weakening, at this rate come Christmas the rate will be 1.50 making things very expensive.

We can only hope it pulls back and in our favour as such a weak dollar rate is not good for business as it means prices go up.....

 

[Mr Paul]

Yeah the dollar/pound is really hitting us