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3rd party 5870/50 cooling, Prolimatech rocks

Caporegime
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
33,188
I finally bit the bullet and decided to get the prolimatech, my 5850 overclocked and overvolted was running a tad hot as my room is basically a small over when the weather is even slightly warm, and horrible in the summer. Fan speeds need to go up to keep temps in check so I decided to buy a cooler.

I got the Prolimatech MK 13 in the end, hoping the promise of cheap mounting kits for future compatibility means its £45 spent for cooling for at least a few different cards.

The reports of the VRM temps when using the VRM sink that comes with it had me a little worried, though difficult to tell because most reviews use furmark, which places a ridiculous load on the VRM's where games simply don't.

I ended up grabbing the Thermalright VRM sink V4 and using that aswell.

It all just about fits and performance wise, wow, the stock sink sucks badly :p

When overclocked, 1.22v, 950Mhz/1200Mhz, playing lotro vsync, with a basically silent fan on the stock sink I was getting 70C, 80C with vsync off(as gpu load goes up significantly). Those can easily be pushed to 65/70C with the fan at a higher speed.

With the new sink, it runs 34C with vsync on, about 36c with vsync off. VRM's between 40-45c.

Furmark bumps temps up to about 45C gpu and about 65c VRM's.

Honestly, in anything but Furmark, so all gaming situations the VRM temps would probably be fine without the Thermalright sink, furmark temps are pointless, no games come close and the extra £20 to cool them, was a waste.

I'm using it with 2x92mm antec fans that cost £3 each. Keep in mind if you find reviews 120mm fans work less well, the sink is too narrow and the "deadzone" on a 120mm is so big you don't actually get much airflow through the heatsink. I'm running the fans on a fan controller, they are running quieter than the stock sink was.


ITs a very effective cooler, that can be run essentially silently with hugely better temps.

CPu temps haven't gone up in any problematic way(warmer day so hard to tell) still stable overclocked at 4.2Ghz on air cooling, 555BE unlocked to quad core.

SO all in all can thoroughly recommend it for pretty awesome temps, silent running, widely compatible and SHOULD fit future cards making it decent value.

I'd also recommend trying the VRM sink that comes with it first, see temps in actual games rather than furmark and decide if you need to spend the extra £20 on the thermalright VRM sink. Also keep in mind if it will fit, the V4 version sides sideways, alongside a CPU cooler, with my IFX-14(HUGE sink) it literally touches the VRM cooler, another mm out and it wouldn't have fitted.
 
I read a review yesterday and was very impressed as the GU fan is the loudest part in my computer by a long way, but I can''t yet justify the steep price.
 
I wanna see pictures:D

Yeah, tempted but got no clue where my camera is, I wasn't using it much so became "family property", not seen it since :p

the VRM cooler is the most ridiculous part of it, so much space between case/edge of card so why it decide not to use that space I don't know.

Very very lucky it just fitted in.

I really was against buying a new expensive cooler........ again, but the promise of future compatibility, plus the fact on the AMD side its fitted a lot of the past series and doesn't change that often, it should be reusable in the future.

I think it was actually one of the reviews linked from the spitfire(thermalright huuuge cooler aswell for gpu) that I saw a review showing 92mm fans doing better than 120mm fans which makes sense. On slowest settings without the fans stalling its so low in temp, well more fan noise/speed/power is just not needed.


I've been saying for YEARS now though, a decent 2 slot cooler that lets you have a PROPER fan on it gives such better temps its a joke and any case made after the "lets have a single 80mm exhaust fan" era moves air through so quickly it doesn't have time to effect temps much at all.

There were a couple issues, though, the memory sinks don't fit on perfectly as the VRM cooler is so massive they stop you being able to mount them normally. SO I went with 3 sinks which cover 1.5 chips each and it works well, otherwise they get in the way of the gpu socket area.

Will have to wait till sometime next year, if it turns out I can use it on my next card I'll be very happy at the price(which would be £22.50 per card) for infinately better cooling than any 5850's you can buy right now, added to getting my 5850 at launch for £193, i'm more than happy.

If it never fits any future cards, well, I won't buy Prolimatech again and it will go down in the lesson learned book.
 
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