Cooler for eVGA GTX 580 SC

CivilDrone · 9 Aug 2011 at 20:20

Evening guys, i was wondering what other option do i have if i got a stock cooling and not planning on going for watercooling. What i was able to find is two things:

Zalman VF3000-F
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-057-ZA&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=787

and accelero extreme plus, which OCuK does not have in stock. my question is do i need any extras for the actual coolers? for accelero there is some sort of additional pack with ram sinks and thermal pads, also aparently with accelero there might be a problem of making contact with the vram. Is that the case with zalman?

Could anyone please shed some light onto this as stock cooler is quiet bad and temps r very alarming

Clum · 9 Aug 2011 at 20:48

What exactly is wrong with the stock cooler? Mine does a great job even with 1.1v pumped through the card. These new vapour chamber coolers on the ref cards are far better than people think so if your temps are high you might want to look at your case cooling.

CivilDrone · 9 Aug 2011 at 20:51

Nope on single card, and doubt i will ever run sli, just getting ready for bf3

those aftermarket coolers are about 20% more effective, or at least that. I wont oc the card either, just want everything nice and cool. Could you please post ur temps?

Clum · 9 Aug 2011 at 20:53

You're just blowing money for no reason in that case. The stock coolers keep the cards at a safe temperature, so any other 20% is meaningless. Your money/warranty

Freddie1980 · 9 Aug 2011 at 20:54

Years ago I was a big fan of changing the stock cooler on video cards. For £20 or so I replaced the rubbish stock HSF on a X1900 XT with an Arctic Accelero X2 which gave me better temps and the noise levels were a lot, lot lower. These days 3rd party graphics cooling requires you to invest twice that and most coolers are huge so you lose another PCI-E slot and their not always that great. Your Zalman VF3000-F is a perfect mirror for the state of 3rd party video cooling i.e very large, very expensive (but effective).

I don't know where you have read about the stock GTX580 cooler being bad, I'm not a Nvidia fan by any means but I've only heard praise for the revised stock HSF on the 500 line. If you want to got ahead with this bear in mind your forking out £435 for a GTX580 1.5Gb (£390 for the card + £45 for the Zalman cooler), granted you get a 10 year warranty with EVGA but for £372 you could get this MSI GTX580 1.5Gb Twin FrozR II with a 3 year warranty which should be ample, a custom cooler, a higher default overclock and you don't have to mess around replacing the HSF.

If your insistent on EVGA for some reason then I suggest you get the card you want and then try it out and see if the noise and temps agree with you then you can decide whether its worth going through all the hassle of replacing the cooler.

Clum said:
You're just blowing money for no reason in that case. The stock coolers keep the cards at a safe temperature, so any other 20% is meaningless. Your money/warranty

With EVGA I believe you can replace the cooler with a 3rd party model and not invalidate the warranty. The only caveat is if you return the card for repairs/replacement you have to remove the 3rd party HSF and put the old one back on so it means finding a place to store the HSF for a number of years.

Krony · 9 Aug 2011 at 21:02

Also if uf u don't have really good case airflow a lot of thoes aftermarket coolers can make things worse as all they do is kick out the hot air into the case to get re-used, i frequent the evga forums a lot and most of the ppl complaining about temps are the ones with the HD or DS versions that do just this.

OCPete · 9 Aug 2011 at 21:08

The Zalman VF3000-F is an EPIC cooler. It also does all the components unlike some other coolers where you need optional extra parts to cover the VRMs or VRAM.

It does vent into the case but its cool and quiet. You can get some VERY good overclocks with it. BUT as stated if temps are fine and fan noise acceptable why bother?

If you want to oc further than temps / noise allow with the std cooler then go for it!

Jay85 · 9 Aug 2011 at 21:10

You should have just gone for a non reference design card with a aftermarket cooler to save yourself the time and effort and voiding your warranty.

clone · 9 Aug 2011 at 21:11

Silly question but have you tryed MSI Afterburner at all to change your fan profile?

CivilDrone · 9 Aug 2011 at 21:13

Clum said:
You're just blowing money for no reason in that case. The stock coolers keep the cards at a safe temperature, so any other 20% is meaningless. Your money/warranty

warranty isnt void with evga if you use aftermarket cooler and rebuild back to original state for rma, and if fans are quiet and gpu runs cooler i dont think its money wasting, plus i dont like the look for some reason

Freddie1980 said:
I don't know where you have read about the stock GTX580 cooler being bad, I'm not a Nvidia fan by any means but I've only heard praise for the revised stock HSF on the 500 line. If you want to got ahead with this bear in mind your forking out £435 for a GTX580 1.5Gb (£390 for the card + £45 for the Zalman cooler), granted you get a 10 year warranty with EVGA but for £372 you could get this MSI GTX580 1.5Gb Twin FrozR II with a 3 year warranty which should be ample, a custom cooler, a higher default overclock and you don't have to mess around replacing the HSF.

Got mine much cheaper, reason i am considering an expensive cooler on it, it will cost me 300 altogether with the cooler. Cheers for adivse, it looks like zalman it is

CivilDrone · 9 Aug 2011 at 21:18

Krony said:
Also if uf u don't have really good case airflow a lot of thoes aftermarket coolers can make things worse as all they do is kick out the hot air into the case to get re-used, i frequent the evga forums a lot and most of the ppl complaining about temps are the ones with the HD or DS versions that do just this.

Was workin on the airflow for a while now, fingers crossed but still would consider zalman

OCPete said:
The Zalman VF3000-F is an EPIC cooler. It also does all the components unlike some other coolers where you need optional extra parts to cover the VRMs or VRAM.

It does vent into the case but its cool and quiet. You can get some VERY good overclocks with it. BUT as stated if temps are fine and fan noise acceptable why bother?

If you want to oc further than temps / noise allow with the std cooler then go for it!

Thank you! at least someone sees where am coming from

Jay85 said:
You should have just gone for a non reference design card with a aftermarket cooler to save yourself the time and effort and voiding your warranty.

I believe warranty isnt voided with evga

clone said:
Silly question but have you tryed MSI Afterburner at all to change your fan profile?

I havent, i just want a good cooler without having to tweak it all the time

Krony · 9 Aug 2011 at 21:22

Warranty will NOT be void by changing the cooler, even for a waterblock and overclocking does not void it either even overvolting as long as u don't use a modded bios to allow more than 1.15v

Clum · 9 Aug 2011 at 21:23

To be fair, you don't even know where you're coming from as you don't even have the card. Try the stock cooler first, you'll be surprised. Stock on 1.15 running the best part of a GHz on the core, will keep the card under 85 degrees, which equates to about 60% fan usage if you have good case flow. You can't even hear 60%.I think you've just got your heart set on an aftermarket one purely for aesthetics though so there's little point in trying to convince you otherwise.

Jay85 · 9 Aug 2011 at 21:23

I did not know EVGA covered modifications to the card, it's no wonder everyone loves EVGA!

clone · 9 Aug 2011 at 21:23

Install it and give it a try mate it`s really good and free.

clone · 9 Aug 2011 at 21:24

Jay85 said:
I did not know EVGA covered modifications to the card, it's no wonder everyone loves EVGA!

They dont they let you take the cooler off for a waterblock thats about it.

Krony · 9 Aug 2011 at 21:24

It also comes with the high flow bracket on which helps with temps over the stock one

Krony · 9 Aug 2011 at 21:25

U can take the cooler off and put a waterblock on as long as if u RMA it it is in the same condition when u send it back it don't matter.
Best thing is try is and if u think it's load or noisey then go for the Zalman

Have a read through this thread about evga's warranty

CivilDrone · 9 Aug 2011 at 21:30

Thanks for all your help guys, prolly sounds silly but i want zalman now, end of

EVGA_Nick · 9 Aug 2011 at 21:59

Freddie1980 said:
With EVGA I believe you can replace the cooler with a 3rd party model and not invalidate the warranty. The only caveat is if you return the card for repairs/replacement you have to remove the 3rd party HSF and put the old one back on so it means finding a place to store the HSF for a number of years.

Correct that we do require the heatsink. If it is missing, we do take payment to replace the heatsink to continue an RMA claim.

clone said:
They dont they let you take the cooler off for a waterblock thats about it.

You can remove the waterblock on a 580 Hydro Copper, replace the Shin-Etsu with your own TIM, and use your own thermal pads for the RAM (although these are fitted). You just can't take the waterblock apart.