Question: ASUS 4870 - after-market cooler, speed-controlling fans,bla bla bla...

Hey, all.

I recently bought a new machine with an ASUS HD 4870 EAH4870 DK/HTDI/
1GD5 .

I'm finding the fan rather loud when the card starts to work a bit

I'm considering pulling the cooler off and replacing it with a
ThermalRight T-RAD2. This cooler will accept 2x92mm fans, so I'm
looking at fans from a brand called Nexus, because they're apparently
very very quiet.

Anyway.

The thought occurs that these fans won't be speed-controlled if I just
hang them off the PC's power supply. But apparently this cooler is
pretty effective, so I'm not sure if speed control would be a big deal
under these circumstances.

Options I see include

1) Just hang the fans off the power supply and let them buzz away at
their default speed all the time;
2) Buy a speed regulator, and manually adjust the fans as I think it's
required (not a big fan of that idea)
3) See if I can maybe hang the 2 after-market 92mm fans off the card's
fan power and let the card power both of them. Not sure what kind of
risk is involved there.

I'd like to come up with a quieter solution than the stock cooling
setup. My guess is that hanging them off the power supply and letting
them buzz away all the time would be acceptable. I don't have any
immediate intentions to overclock anything.

Any feedback is appreciated!

BD

 

I recently bought a new machine with an ASUS HD 4870 EAH4870 DK/HTDI/

First try installing the 9.1 drivers, then making two profiles: one for
everyday browsing and non-3D, with the clock/mem speeds set to minimum, and
fanspeed on auto; the other for 3D gaming, with clocks set high and fanspeed
set to 35% manual.

Then run Rivatuner temperature monitoring in the background while you
run 3DMark or FurMark, etc, with the 3D profile activated, and check temps
afterwards. My card does fine at 35% fanspeed, which is mostly unheard when
gaming.

rms

 

I'll give that a go - thanks!

The Thermalright stuff showed up today. I'm going to give it a go. If
I can make the whole system quieter I will do - and at this point that
stock GPU fan is the loudest thing in my case, even when it's not
laboring.