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Can I use a Prolimatech Mk13 passive on GTX460?

psykix

psykix

psykix

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17 Jan 2007
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576
As above..

Has anyone used one passively on a GTX460?

I have the MSI Cyclone, and use it for a gaming HTPC... I want to use LAV CUVID codec, but this racks up the fan speed to noisy levels :-(

I was going to buy the Powercolor 6850 SCS3 HD but I can't find one available anywhere in the UK :-(
 
I doubt if you could go totally passive with the MK-13 on a card such as the 460. The MK-13 is a cooler designed for active cooling and as such the fins are spaced quite close together. A passive cooler tends to have larger gaps between fins to allow for the heat to transfer from the array to the surrounding air.

In addition the MK-13 isn't that big a cooler compared with some.

If you have awesome airflow through your system it might work but otherwise I'd be looking at getting a slow moving fan blowing cool air on the heatsink to shift that heat away.

Why the MK-13? Do you already have one?
 
Thanks for the reply.. No particular reason for picking the MK13..

I just want to try to make it quieter without spending too much cash!

I have a 6950 in my main machine, and that's quite noisy when playing games too..
 
Big heatsink fin arrays do tend to cost a fair bit of money. Arctic do a passive solution though, the S1 but I don't know if it's capable of cooling a 460 without the turbo module (fans).

I put a Thermalright Shaman on my reference Asus 6950 and it's basically very quiet as the 140mm only needs to spin at less than 900rpm, even at high load. Takes up a lot of space though and that makes crossfire a challenge.

I doubt if even the shaman could cool a mid range graphics card passively and without overheating.
 
Last edited:
psykix said:
I have the MSI Cyclone, and use it for a gaming HTPC... I want to use LAV CUVID codec, but this racks up the fan speed to noisy levels :-(
Click to expand...
psykix said:
I just want to try to make it quieter without spending too much cash!
Click to expand...
Why not just download MSI Afterburner and set a custom fanspeed profile? Doesn't cost a thing!

This should be the best option if the temp is under control despite the lower rpm of the fan.
 
psykix said:
I'll give that a whirl actually.. What's a safe temp to run the GTX460 at?
Click to expand...
GPU are generally fine up to 80ish...it's only when it hit above 90C that people should be worried.

The MSI Cyclone is a pretty good cooler...I would imagine you have no problem keeping the GTX460 under 80C even with the reduced rpm.

But you should have a fan on the side-panel next to the graphic card as exhaust, since the Cyclone cooler dump heat into the case, and if you don't have an exhaust for the lower half of the case, the heat will get trapped at lower half of the case and keep getting recycled back to the card. My MSI 5850 Twin FrozRII is a "dump heat into case" cooler too, and the having my side-panel fan as exhaust rather than intake actually reduced my 5850's temp by 5C!

Edited: Actually what case do you have?
 
I'm using an Fractal Design R3 with stock coolers for the HTPC..

The cyclone is inaudible with fan speeds up to 50% in this case..

What I did was create custom profile which stops fan going above 50% when the HTPC is running (using LAVCUVID codec) and this results in a temp of circa 57C.

I can't seem to get the profile to take effect unless afterburner is running - is this right (wasn't quite sure how afterburner does the profiles)? I did tell it to apply OC on startup..
 
Afterburner is managing the fan profile and cannot do this until it is loaded into memory. Up until it loads the BIOS on card is controlling the fan speed. To make fan profiles persistent to the graphics card you'd need to edit the BIOS on the card with your new fan profile, which can be a dangerous thing to do if you have just a single BIOS on the card.

You could also use manual fan control and set it at it's fastest inaudible level and run some tests to make sure the temperatures level off before the danger zone of high 90s. I did this intially with my old 4890 Vapor-x and had it set at 40%. Sadly this meant the temps went over 105 degrees and the card had to step in and whirr up the fan to 100% every couple of minutes, so I went back to auto fan control.
 
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