Anyone here make their own shrouds for the gfx cards? I'm getting a new vid card (9600gt) that has a heatpipe heatsink + shroud & fan. Since I'm poor I've been thinking about pulling that shroud & fan and making my own - see if i can do a significantly better job.
This card is a 2 slot design so the second has slits to allow exhaust out. My idea was to make a taller shroud (I don't use the PCI slots below at all) to allow slightly rotating the fan(s). So instead of blow straight up they'd be angled to blow back toward the back of the case too. I believe the heatpipe is long enough that I could put 2 80mm fans on the shroud, both being angled. Ultimately my goals would be;
1) to push all my exhaust out the back through the exhaust slot (and maybe another slot)
2) get rid of the noisy stock cooler
3) drop temps on the card compared to the stock cooler.
I think getting all exhaust out the back this way would drop case temperatures overall. I have a VF-900 on my current gfx card and it does a good job for the gfx card, but it spreads all its exhaust into the case. Its kind of stupid if you ask me.
Anyway I'll try to draw a picture of my proposed shroud. Let me know if this topic is already covered elsewhere.
