All my cooling knowledge has failed me. Like the title says, I cannot keep my 4830s cool. My system specs are in my sig. Yes, I do have 2 4830s for CF. Even when only one card is in the system, it runs hot.
I have two of these. Stock cooling, as expected, was too loud, so I ditched it. With stock cooling, the cards idled ~52 and loaded at ~85. Average performance imo.
I got two Arctic Cooling S1s to replace the stock cooling. Passive cooling didn't work. 96C in Furmark is worrisome, especially when temps have not stabilized yet. So I bought 4 Scythe Kaze-Jyu Slim fans. For the uninformed, they are 100x12mm fans that run at 1000rpm max. I found them to be decently quiet at full speed, and inaudible at ~500rpm. So I got some Stretch Magic and I tied two fans to each AC S1. Final result looked like this:
So I get everything together and temps arn't what I was expecting. The cards idled at around 52 and loaded at 75C. It was much quieter, but still hot. Something else that worries me is the temperature of the actual card itself. (ie the PCB) Touching the back of the card will burn my finger. Some places are (realatively) hot and others are blistering. There are no 'warm' spots.
Just for fun, I decided to put a HR-03 onto the top card. This is the original 4 heatpipe HR-03. I put it so the heatsink is above the card. At first, I had my Thermalright Ultra-120 pointed to the rear exhauset in my P180. The card idled at ~60 and overheated in Furmark. I re-oriented my TRU so that it pointed to the top exhaust. Now the HR-03 was within a couple cm of the S-Flex (800rpm) used on the TRU. This time the card idled a few degrees lower and stabilized at ~90 in Furmark. What really bothered me was how hot the actual card and heatsink got, ignoring the numbers. I acidentially touched one of the HR-03's heatpipes. It was extremely hot. I can't describe how hot they were. It was the hottest thing I have ever felt in a PC. Even touching the end of the longest heatpipe burned my finger. Needless to say, the heatsink itself also burned my fingers. With the underside of card exposed, I finally got to feel the memory. Its GDDR3 and runs extremely hot. (it burned my fingers) Anyone see a pattern here?
Let me say that I know that all the temperatures I've mentioned are within 'thermal limits'. I also know that Furmark is an unrealistic load. Nonetheless, I still think cards should be able to withstand Furmark with higher-than-normal-but-still-reasonable temps.
So I have a few final questions.
- 4830/4850 owners, how have you cooled your cards?
- Are my experiences normal/reasonable?
- How can I improve my situation? (switching cards is an option)