New cooler for ATI HD 4870

MarcLister · 25 Aug 2011 at 01:32

I will shortly be moving my PC into a new case (Antec 300) which I hope will give me a chance to have a cooler PC, and to better organise the cables for better air flow.

I was thinking that it might be worth getting a third party cooler for my ATI HD 4870 but I'm not up with what coolers are good/worth the money. The Akasa AK-VC03-BLUV Vortexx NEO on OcUK looks pretty good for £16 but then the Thermalright Shaman looks awesome for £51. For the price of each, which one is the better deal? And are there any other coolers that are better for £50 or less?

Purgatory · 25 Aug 2011 at 08:24

You could get a Arctic Cooling Accelero Twin Turbo Pro VGA Cooler (Has Dual Fans) for around £25

or for fanless option this one ..

Arctic Cooling Accelero S1 Rev 2 VGA Cooler Noiseless Cooling 4 Heat Pipes For around £14

You could also add a turbo module to it later if you decide (Turbo Module – the twin fans add-on).

Also there is this one if you like thermalright coolers.

THERMALRIGHT 4890/4870 VRM-R1 Graphics Card Heatsink for £16 and again you could add any 2 x 80mm fans of your choice to it later if you like.

The thermalright Sharman is great but I think a bit overkill and why waste that much money on an old graphics card ? .. Better priced coolers out there just google "4870 GPU cooler" and hit shopping you will see what I mean.

Also some people that purchased the The Akasa AK-VC03-BLUV Vortexx NEO found it does not fit on their 4870's or they had to mod it to fit. So I would avoid it mate and it's probably the worst cooler out of all the 4870 coolers out there and reason is it's meant to be a cheap replacement to tide you over till you replace your card to a new one. By the looks of what you are saying seems you like the card and more then happy with it, but just wanting to make it run cooler and last you as long as possible. So go for one of the ones I mentioned above and check some reviews for them there are many reviews for the coolers I mentioned, just type the name of the cooler into google and add review at end and you will see.

I just had a little look on OCUKs products page and their best GPU cooler is this one at a good price for your card, check some reviews for it they rate it highly too.

Gelid Icy Vision VGA Cooler £37.78 inc VAT

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-002-GD&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=787

MarcLister · 25 Aug 2011 at 10:52

Cheers Purgatory. Yeah I'm happy with the system I've got and I just want it to run as cool as it can. I agree the Thermalright Shaman is a bit much for the age of the card; I put that in as a bit of a wild card.

I'll have a look at the Gelid Icy Vision one.

Tealc · 25 Aug 2011 at 12:04

For an older card I'd be looking at the cheaper options. Shaman is awesome but is probably worth more than the card itself. That said it will turn a 4870 into a near silent card, whereas the Vortexx won't.

The vrm r1 and r2 are not graphics chip coolers, they are just for cooling the vrm mosfets.

What about a second hand cooler? I think stuff like the t-rad fitted the 4870.

MarcLister · 25 Aug 2011 at 17:24

Tealc said:
For an older card I'd be looking at the cheaper options. Shaman is awesome but is probably worth more than the card itself. That said it will turn a 4870 into a near silent card, whereas the Vortexx won't.

That'd be cool though, pardon the pun.

Tealc said:
The vrm r1 and r2 are not graphics chip coolers, they are just for cooling the vrm mosfets.

Oh, OK.

Tealc said:
What about a second hand cooler? I think stuff like the t-rad fitted the 4870.

So time to trawl Ebay?

Tealc · 25 Aug 2011 at 17:37

I'd imagine they'd be pretty scarce as not many people buy and fit aftermarket coolers to their graphics cards and only some of them would bother to sell them on afterwards.

Scythe musashi is another cooler which I looked at for a bit when contemplating cooling a 4890.

I use a Shaman on a 6950 by the way and that's why I can attest to it's awesomeness.

MarcLister · 25 Aug 2011 at 17:40

Tealc said:
I use a Shaman on a 6950 by the way and that's why I can attest to it's awesomeness.

Haha.

What kind of temperature drops did you see? I reckon the Shaman would force a drop from 79oC to 50oC. :cool:

Tealc · 25 Aug 2011 at 17:57

Well I was seeing 90+ with the stock cooler and it was noisy at idle (like someone hoovering their car in the street outside the house) and really unbearable at load even with the auto fan speed well below 50%. It was a reference 6950 so had the blower type fan.

Anyway since installing Shaman and using the PWM signal generated by the graphics card the temps go up to around the mid 70s using Kombustor, the VRM a touch higher with the TY-140 fan spinning from around 670 at idle going up to 850rpm ish at full load. I can have them down in the low 60s under Kombustor if I'm prepared to have a fan spinning at 1300rpm in my case (I'm not).

My case isn't well ventilated as I go for the lowest noise I can so those temperatures reflect a case that gets a good 10 degrees above ambient.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1825934

Grandmaster Fap! · 25 Aug 2011 at 18:15

Just got an accelero twin turbo pro to put on my 6870 BE, absolute stonking cooler for £25, even at full speed it's barely audible. Keeps the card under 65c when running Furmark and the fan never gets above 30% speed.

mickyflinn · 25 Aug 2011 at 22:39

Make sure u get the pro version , beware its a monster.

Damm you can have my 4870 with accelero twin turbo pro for £50.

korpayne · 7 Sep 2011 at 06:57

Castor said:
Just got an accelero twin turbo pro to put on my 6870 BE, absolute stonking cooler for £25, even at full speed it's barely audible. Keeps the card under 65c when running Furmark and the fan never gets above 30% speed.

mickyflinn said:
Make sure u get the pro version , beware its a monster.

Damm you can have my 4870 with accelero twin turbo pro for £50.

where did you guys get your Accelero TWIN TURBO Pro? I can't seem to find them in stock anywhere

MarcLister · 12 Nov 2011 at 17:07

Bit of a bump but I just got my Asus ATI Radeon 6770 today. I saw a thread talking about replacements for a 4870 and found a reply suggesting a new HIS 6770. However someone then said the Asus one has 3 years warranty to the HIS' 2. So I bought the Asus and got it this morning.

My 4870 was running at 79/80oC even in my new Antec case! :eek:

I did have to blow a big layer of dust off the side intake fan but I was VERY pleasantly surprised when Speccy reported that my new 6770 was running at 35/36oC. When I finished on COD:MW3 I checked the temps from gaming - 48oC. :cool:

So even after a bit of gaming the new 6770's highest temp is way lower than the resting temp of my old 4870.

Thanks to all the advice you gave me.

Tealc · 12 Nov 2011 at 18:00

Yes 5770 and 6770 are basically the same card and are comparable to a 4870 I believe.

Nice low temps. How's the noise?

MarcLister · 12 Nov 2011 at 18:24

Noise? What noise?

I did turn the 140mm fan on the Antec 300 (roof exhaust) up from medium to high speed. That's the noisiest thing on the PC right now. I've found an Akasa 140mm fan, bit more oomph and quieter than the Antec 140mm one. Not sure if I want to spend £15 on that though when the case is quiet and cool right now.