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Title: Backside gpu cooling (AMD 7970) Post by: Snafupossum on March 13, 2012, 12:34:34 AM In my quest to figure out how to cool down my gpu to keep its jet turbine from making my pc airborne I thought of something. Why not cool from the backside of the pcb? I did some research and found the thermalright hr-11 http://www.thermalright.com/new_a_page/product_page/vga/hr11/product_vga_cooler_hr11.htm (http://www.thermalright.com/new_a_page/product_page/vga/hr11/product_vga_cooler_hr11.htm) . I read reviews and it did seem to help the temps a hair. So I went on my quest to do the same.
Found some old fans, looked up part numbers and found the one with the most cfm(~23) to use. A 60mm case fan looks like it could actually be rigged to bolt to the gpu's heatsink mounts but I personally do not want to go that far. I used foam to space the fan off the backside of the graphics card with screws pushed through the foam for rigidity and placing electrical tape on the "feet" to keep from shorting anything out. (http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e30/snafupossum/IMG_20120312_230528.jpg) Now time for the test. Idle test was at gpu fan speed 40% for about 10 minutes, load test was fan set to 60% running through full unigine benchmark. Also before I get to the test, in case you cant see from the pictures, I have my afterburner unofficialoverclock set to a value of 2 to keep max clocks. No extra fan at idle (http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e30/snafupossum/tempnofanidle.jpg) Extra fan at idle (http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e30/snafupossum/tempwithfanidle.jpg) As you can see there isn't anything to brag about just a ~3 degree difference. No extra fan at load (http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e30/snafupossum/tempnofanload.jpg) Extra fan at load (http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e30/snafupossum/tempwithfanload.jpg) This test shows a greater difference of ~7 degree difference! I am sure with some fine tuning I can bring it to a double digit margin. :D |