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GTX 480 Lightning cooling...

ALXAndy

ALXAndy

ALXAndy

Soldato
Joined
23 Apr 2010
Posts
12,310
Location
West Sussex
Hi guys. So basically a couple of months ago some one gave me a 480 Lightning. The first time I fitted it I accidentally broke one of the fans (closing the Dell PCI bracket).

I replaced the fans with 80mm fans (the 480 Lightning comes with 90mm fans that are impossible to replace) and wired them to my fan controller. All was going well until the other day when one of them started vibrating and has died.

So, I have a few options. Was just hoping for feedback on them.

Option 1 - try and find a air cooler that will fit. The mounting holes I believe are pretty much stock and the cooler comes off with 4 screws. Cost around £45 ish.

Option 2 - Get a MSI Dragon AIO for £38, then fit a Pulse modding Dwood knock off type bracket for £8.49 and liquid cool it.

Option 3 - try and fix it again..

Things to note.

This is not a gaming PC though I do game on it. It was built as a workstation and uses a hex core Westmere CPU. I do game on it from time to time and I can OC the GPU to 880mhz before the PSU craps out (odd rail layout that I've not quite gotten my head around given I made a loom for the PSU) I just want it cool and quiet, given I can spend upward of fifteen hours sitting at it.

I would have to remove the RAID box I made (pic in a sec) and somehow mount the rad in that space should I go AIO.. Pic of the PC..



It's a very, very heavily modified Dell Precision.. The CPU is cooled by a H100 on Nidec fans running at around 15%. So it's very, very quiet and if I could in any way make it quieter then I will.

Opinions Gentlemen please.
 
I'd remove that link dude...

Possibly. But those coolers are not very good and trust me when I say, this Lightning is packing heat. It would need a far more substantial air cooler than that tbh.
 
You can't link to other sites that sell computer gear. Understandable really..

The Twin Turbo will not cope with the 480 Lightning I can promise you that. The Lightning's Twin Frozr would do a better job without the fans running.

This is an extreme card with an extreme core. Just trust me on that...
 
Do you have to stick with the 480? You could sell it and replace it with a 750ti, it will be a bit more expensive though.

On the flip side you'll consume about 20% of the power of the 480 and it's still a fantastic card. I have two and they happily chug away at 1080p, in some games very close to ultra. Absolutely love them. Very cool and very quiet too, and they overclock like crazy.
 
Diddums said:
Do you have to stick with the 480? You could sell it and replace it with a 750ti, it will be a bit more expensive though.

On the flip side you'll consume about 20% of the power of the 480 and it's still a fantastic card. I have two and they happily chug away at 1080p, in some games very close to ultra. Absolutely love them. Very cool and very quiet too, and they overclock like crazy.
Click to expand...

To be honest the 480 Lightning will obliterate the 750ti. I currently have it clocked at 880mhz with no voltage bump. It does go more (900+) but sadly the PSU has a very odd rail layout (lots of 9 amp rails) so I've not been able to get the power stable at any higher clocks.

At 880mhz it's knocking on the door of a stock 7970, so there's no way the 750ti would offer the kind of grunt the card has.

I really don't want to change the card out tbh. There's just no point given it's absolutely ideal for the purpose.

I could replace the fans again yes, but they are not PWM and the Lightning originally used 4 pin PWM. Right now the card looks like this...



And I have 5 extra of those yellow fans I could repair it with. But, they need to be driven quite hard when the card is being benched and so on so I want it quieter...
 
So here is a review on TPU of the 480 Lightning:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/N480GTX_GTX_480_Lightning/26.html

Under normal loads, it consumes a peak power of 230W.

Arctic Cooling rates their Accelero Twin Turbo 3 for 250W.

http://www.arctic.ac/eu_en/products/cooling/vga/accelero-twin-turbo-iii.html


Furthermore, TPU's test show that this 480 consumes LESS power than a stock 480. Coupled with the Tom's Hardware post I showed earlier, where a person mentioned he got 75 degrees on a stock 40 with the Twin Turbo 2 (model this replaces), I say you can achieve pretty decent temps with it.

So no offence, but saying that the stock cooler (without its fans) would do a better job than this product is a bit of an exaggeration. If you have any personal problems with this brand/type of cooler, you should have mentioned that in your post :)

Anyway, the Twin Turbo 3 is available for £41.99 on OCUK (pre-order).
 
I don't think you understand. Whilst the Lightning will consume less power than a GTX 480 at stock (due to the low leakage transistors and better power phases) it guzzles power when clocked to 880mhz and beyond.

The stock cooler on it is around 30% bigger than the Arctic you are trying to convince me to buy. I had one of those Twin Turbos on a 9800 GT and it barely cooled that, let alone Fermi's finest.

At the very least I would need something like this.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-022-AL&groupid=701&catid=2330&subcat=787

Which I would then need to put fans on and it's very bulky. I think I will just go with the liquid solution.
 
If you've got plenty of space and don't mine something a bit messy, just take the shroud off and lash 2 120mm fans like piranhas or sp120s using shoelace or cable ties directly to the heatsink.
 
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