Thermal pads on 7800 GTX graphic card

[RADCOM]

Not sure if this is the correct section please move if innaproriate. I have two ASUS EN7800GTX they overclock to about 490/1310 I'm happy with that I have bought two Artic Cooling 5 rev 3 and I was wondering if it is possible/worth it to replace the thermal pads with ceramique. 3Dmark 05 benchmark is lowish @ 10300 stock 10800 overclocked as above... I have AMD 3500 ( newcastle core ) on ASUS A8N SLI premium is this why? Should I bite the bullet and watercool them which coolers are good?

[ricecrispi]

I would ditch the thermal pad. If you want to watercool, do it for silence because any performance improvements won't be noticeable in gaming unless resolutions are 1600x1200 and monitor is 20 inchs and larger.

If you have 19 inch monitor, one is enough. Sell the other card.

[guandi]

yep, ditch the pads. any cooling above and beyond stock usual allows for a performace boost of some description. ricecrispi, thats not quite true. even on my 19" the performance increase is noticable between a single and dual 7800gtx even on games like UT2k3 due to the sheer framerate increase, esecially when using high AA and AS with max settings (and omg does it look *lush*). as for selling the other card, whats the point when you can force peformance and quality settings and make any game look great, and be able to handle anything new for the next year or so.

[ricecrispi]

WOW, sli 7800gtx for UT2k3. The most graphically demanding game today....
Man, that game must push those two cards to the ABSOLUTE LIMITS

Guandi,
He already pushed overclocks to 490 core and 1.3 ghz mem. That would get 7-8 fps improvements. I doubt you will get more than 2-3 fps improvements on further overclocks. So is it worth your money to watercool when you have artic silencers on already, no unless you want complete silence and some extra juice. IMO, the artic silencers are very quiet already. Removing the thermal pad will just keep temps a couple of degrees lower and is easy to do.

As for Guandi.

a single 7800gtx will handle that old game, UT2K3, with all the bells and whistles enable to the max on a 19 inch and still get 130+ FPS. Why you have them in sli is beyond me when you get nothing out of that second card and the $400-$500 you threw away. Buy some new games man

Sheer FPS.... All you need is 80 fps. That is good enough because it is an average rate so FPS can be drop. At 80 fps, it will hardly ever drop below 60 fps, the rate when your eyes start to notice differences in framerates.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2500&p=3

These are more gpu demanding games and still get 80 fps with AA and high quality settings, very large high resolutions that i doubt you can use on 19 inch, and with a single card, not sli.

[RADCOM]

Thanks for THE INSIGHT. I have a 22inc Lacie CRT I can set 1600/1200 with 85hz refresh rate I run games with Vsynch on. Backplate of Artic is just stuck on the thermal pads so I'd have to use adhesive which is pretty permanent. One card ( 1st slot ) is 3 - 6 degrees higher than the other???

[guandi]

RADCOM, You will almost always get one SLi card hotter than the other with internal air cooling when one cards intake is directly above the backside of another hot graphics card. If you want a non permanent solution you can mask off all the mating surfaces and spray the card with laquer to seal all electrical contacts around them and use arctic silver without worry of it geting in places it shouldnt.


ricecrispi, I'm sorry, that was a force of habbit typo, i meant to say UT2k4. Although my mistake didnt warrent that enthusiasm enriched sardonic response.

I know that a single 7800gtx will handle most current games with ease, but i'm not going to go out and buy a new graphics adaptor every few months jut to "keep up". My 7800gtx's are only on loan at the moment from a freind who is still building a custom chrome plated system and it is taking a while to build (2 months so far but i'm not complaining).

I have two BGF 6800Ultra's that i bought as soon as the prices dropped, and they are going to last me untill 2007's next best thing. they have served me well for older games, current games and will probably do me proud for another year or so, and there is a reason they will last that long.

On the stock cooling it would be common for them to hit 90'C during extending gaming in the summer evenings, and even tho they dont even slow down untill they hit a massive 135'C, it was still choppy and jumpy. Once i had them watercooled they never went above 45'C even in a 38'C room (okay, so i had the aircon on a little bit..) thus i can overclock them slightly if i ever need to and keep them well within their operating temperatures so that they will last untill i *choose* to upgrade. The same thing can be applied to the 7800gtx.

As for frame rates, you said it. frame rates can and will drop in intensive parts of the game and having a faster card to compensate is worth it. In games to come it will still perform, and as RADCOM said 1600/1200@85 with Vsync on, thats damn good.

[maxSaleen]

UT2K3 and UT2K4, I believe, are both based off the same engine. Larger maps in 2K4.

I disagree about the noise level of the artic cooling silencers. I had one on a 6800GT, and was very disappointed by it, far louder than any of the other fans in my system. I also did not like the airflow it produced in my case. It seemed... counterproductive.

If you've already put down $1,000 on your video cards, and have a pre-existing water cooling loops, might as well lay down $100 for GPU blocks. This one is pretty good, though we don't have any empircal data for it (obligatory statement, this is Procooling after all) :

http://www.cooltechnica.com/Merchant...egory_Code=VCW