7800GT cooler

[DannyW]

if i baught a zalman cooler from overclockers like this one at the top- http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/copy_of_Zalman.html

would it void my warrenty? and also would it be run cooler and quiter ect.. ??


thanks

 

[Xez]

Yes, yes and yes although they wont really notice if you just pop the original cooler back on if it needs RMA'ing.

 

[DannyW]

cheers, i heard that they can tell if you have swapped something because the screws have black paint which comes off if you unscrew it.. is this true?

 

[sunlitsix]

theres one way to find out

 

[Xez]

nope ive taken mine off a couple of times now and the paints still fine.

Whats one way to find out?

Edit: Eh duh! Just realised... sorry hard day at college

 

[Angilion]

cheers, i heard that they can tell if you have swapped something because the screws have black paint which comes off if you unscrew it.. is this true?

It's possible that they could tell, either from paint comng off or from examining the thermal paste. When you fit the new cooler, you will clean the original paste off and use something else, so if you refit the original cooler the paste will be different to the orignal.

The odds are against it, though.

Personally, I prefer Arctic Cooling over Zalman because AC coolers exhaust heat straight out the back of your PC, which I think is a useful enough feature to give those coolers the edge over Zalman ones. There are advantages with the Zalman coolers too, though.

Either should give a significant drop in both temps and noise, or optimised to one or the other via fan speed control. You could get the same temps as with the stock cooler but with a very large decrease in noise, or you could get the same noise but with a very large decrease in temperature. EDIT: Better than that, come to think of it. You could probably get lower temps and a decrease in noise so large that you won't be able to hear the graphics card unless you put your head next to your PC.

Plus, as an added bonus, it gives you something else to vary (the cooler fan speed) to tune your PC with (for a trade-off between noise and temperatures)!