Cooling my HD4850

Jelly

Jelly

Jelly

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I have an Asus EAH4850 which I've been using for roughly 2 years. It's performed great and still does, but after using rivatuner for a while, the temperatures it can reach during normal gaming sometimes worry me. Cleaning the card frequently and having various fan profiles have helped hugely, but I think it'd be easier to invest in a decent GPU cooler as opposed to having a noisy fan.

In a thread I read here from 2007/2008 when the card was new, the Zalman VF1000 got a lot of praise and looked simple enough to set up. It's still sold by amazon for about £30.

In a more recent thread (2009/10) I heard the Akasa Vortexx was also a good cooler, and it only costs £16 from OCUK.

Are these two both decent choices, or is one better than the other? Are there better coolers out there for similar prices?

Temperatures are definitely important, but I'm willing to sacrifice a few degrees if one of the coolers is much easier to fit (I've never fit a GPU cooler before). Thanks for any help
 
What sort of temps are we talking about here?

Is there much point in spending on an older card though? Unless of course the aftermarket cooler will also fit your next card too.
 
I used Arctic Cooling Accelero Twin Turbo
http://www.arctic-cooling.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=2_&mID=101
Was very good compared to the stock cooler, mind you stock one was single slot and this is dual slot and dual fan as well.
Can run on 5,7 and 12V.
But the ram cooling kinda sucks! The ram sinks would not stay fixed, they would just fall off! So had to do a custom job for the ram, using the stock coolers ram sink part.
Other than that it has served me well.
 
Wow, im in exactly the same boat
I have the asus EAH 4850 512mb and my stock cooler is idling about 43 peaking at 60 after an hour of stress testing, these temps may not seem the highest but when it comes to cooling i am u psessed with having lots of fans etc.
I was looking at the Akasa Freedom force cooler which looked quite cool and the results didn't seem too bad.
That Arctic cooling one does sound quite good by the looks of it though, i want to get my temps under 50 when at full load

Thanks

PS: Sorry for half Hi-jacking the thread
 
I had a stock 4850 single slot and fitted the akasa neo vortex and it made a massive difference. The fan isnt adjustable but its almost silent and you wont hear it above the rest of your rig. Superb value for money :)
 
Tealc said:
What sort of temps are we talking about here?

Is there much point in spending on an older card though? Unless of course the aftermarket cooler will also fit your next card too.
Click to expand...

It's a single slot card, so they'll probably sound pretty high.

Immediately after cleaning the card, it idles at roughly 49*C with the fan speed set to 55% in Rivatuner. The fan is audible but I've gotten used to it. Generally I'll take it out and clean it when it hits 70 idle.

Under load in TF2 right now it's at about 80 after an hour of play, but TF2 isn't exactly taxing the card.

In metro 2033, the graphics card is under close to 100% load, and the temperature has hit 103*C before when I wasn't paying attention. With the fan at 85% I can keep the temperature at about 85-90*C

If I haven't cleaned the card for a while, normally about a month, temperatures in TF2 can hit 90 and games like Metro 2033 can almost instantly put the temperature above 100.

I've read that the 4850 runs hot, but that does seem a little extreme to me, although the card has not failed due to heat yet.
 
For goodness sake my 4890 goes up to the 90s and I can't be bothered to change the stock cooling and you are concerned about 60?

Do NOT get a Nividia Fermi card, that's all I will say.
 
Jelly said:
It's a single slot card, so they'll probably sound pretty high.

Immediately after cleaning the card, it idles at roughly 49*C with the fan speed set to 55% in Rivatuner. The fan is audible but I've gotten used to it. Generally I'll take it out and clean it when it hits 70 idle.

Under load in TF2 right now it's at about 80 after an hour of play, but TF2 isn't exactly taxing the card.

In metro 2033, the graphics card is under close to 100% load, and the temperature has hit 103*C before when I wasn't paying attention. With the fan at 85% I can keep the temperature at about 85-90*C

If I haven't cleaned the card for a while, normally about a month, temperatures in TF2 can hit 90 and games like Metro 2033 can almost instantly put the temperature above 100.

I've read that the 4850 runs hot, but that does seem a little extreme to me, although the card has not failed due to heat yet.
Click to expand...

Honestly get the neo vortexx and you wont look back (but you may notice the silence :) )

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-047-AK&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=787
 
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Okay, as a warning to Arcimbaldo who was looking for a cooler: The Akasa Vortexx does not fully cover the EAH4850. It seems to have an array of chips at the back which are covered by a heatsink which is attached to the stock main fan. The Vortexx only covers the chips immediately surrounding the core GPU, and recommends you buy a separate heatsink for the rear ones (it gives the model number AK-VMC-01BK)
 
Jelly said:
Okay, as a warning to Arcimbaldo who was looking for a cooler: The Akasa Vortexx does not fully cover the EAH4850. It seems to have an array of chips at the back which are covered by a heatsink which is attached to the stock main fan. The Vortexx only covers the chips immediately surrounding the core GPU, and recommends you buy a separate heatsink for the rear ones (it gives the model number AK-VMC-01BK)
Click to expand...

I ran without any heatsink at the back (made my own but never needed to fit it) as the cooler blows air out of the botton of it over the vrm. The stock only had them because there was no air flow from the fan over the vrm's.
 
After a certain temp the card will lock up. I did it over clocking with furmark on my 5850 . VRM's hit over 110 degrees. :eek:
 
If the OP buys a akasa vortexx and is worried about cooling the vrm's he can have the heatsink i made for the vrms for free inc shen-etsu frag tape already in place to fit it. Just PM me :)
 
dfour said:
I ran without any heatsink at the back (made my own but never needed to fit it) as the cooler blows air out of the botton of it over the vrm. The stock only had them because there was no air flow from the fan over the vrm's.
Click to expand...

Ah, this is very useful info. Will definitely try out the cooler tomorrow, keeping an eye on the vram temps especially, and might take you up on your free heatsink offer if they're too high :p

Also thanks Akempster for some general temperature safety ratings for this card; I've googled about a bit but not found a solid or rough number.
 
Azza said:
Akasa Vortexx


Brilliant cooler.

/thread
Click to expand...

Agree, but it wouldn't fit on my 4850 when I had one, stupid me for not checking if it was a reference desing. Stupid Sapphire for not stating that it was non standard :mad:

AC Twin Turbo f t w. Is there a Twin Turbo model for the 5850 yet?
 
Arcimbaldo said:
That sounds good.
So what did you do about cooling the memory?
ATM i have some thermal pads on with copper 1p pieces drawing the heat away.
Click to expand...

As dfour said earlier in the thread, the Vortexx has an exhaust which blows air over the memory at the back. It doesn't generate nearly as much heat as the core, so the airflow is enough to keep it low (It's typically around 5*C hotter than the core, which is still a very low temperature compared to stock).
 
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