Graphics card cooler question

[Aidoscuz]

A friend of mine is looking to get a new graphics card cooler since the current one on his Asus X800XL is pretty loud and always runs at 100%. He's looking at the Arctic Cooling ATI Silencer 5 since it's pretty cheap and he can buy it locally here in Ireland. He's got a DFI LanParty UT NF4, and by the looks of it that cooler would block the chipset fan on the motherboard. Would this be serious enough to mean he couldn't get the Arctic?

Thanks

 

[Aidoscuz]

Here's a picture by the way:

Looks like the Arctic would completely block off the chipset fan. Anyone got this combination working?

 

[Aidoscuz]

Hang on - am I missing the obvious solution here, ie, does the second PCIe slot work fine? Does the main graphics card have to be in the first slot or can the other one be used?

 

[MonkeyMagic]

I had an x800xt with the arctic cooler in the bottom slot, that worked ok. However if its an ultra-D its setup as x2 and x16 on the pci-e lanes (I think) so you will lose a little performance (we are talking a couple of hundred 3dmarks in 05) if you put it in the bottom slot. To put it in the top slot you need to cut a little of the plastic fan casing on the arctic cooler to get it to fit or it will clash with the chipset fan.

You could mod the nf4 ultra to become nf4 SLI so that the top and bottom slots both become x8 then you wouldnt lose that little bit of performance by bunging it in the bottom slot.

http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/AMD/120

It looks like a dead simple mod and I was tempted to do it myself.

 

[Aidoscuz]

Thanks for the reply. It does look like a nice mod but I'd be just a bit nervous about it since it's a friend's computer rather than my own. I'd definitely do it if it was my computer. Anyway, I think a Zalman VF-700 might be a better option since that's available here as well and wouldn't require any modding.