Is the Accelero s3 compatible with Gigabyte HD Radeon 7770?

[valmar]

Hi everyone,
I had a great passion for PC silencing a few years ago but let things rest for a while. Now my passion is back so I got my old PC back from the attic and checked if it still works. Unfortunately there was no graphic card in there, so I bought a used Gigabyte HD Radeon 7770 which works fine but the fan is very noisy and rattles a lot. So I wanted to get a Accelero S3 cooler (http://www.arctic.ac/de_de/accelero-s3.html) since it should be compatible with AMD 7770 PCB and can run the card without a fan.

Unfortunately I noticed that the Gigabyte video card is not a reference design. Actually, its design seems to be completely different according to this article: http://www.legitreviews.com/gigabyte-ra ... eview_1873
According to Arctic's website the compatibility info for the cooler only applies to reference design cards.

Does anybody know it the Accelerator s3 is still compatible with the Gigabyte Radeon HD 7770?
If not, can you recommend a different compatible and silent cooler?

Thanks in advance,
Timo

[quest_for_silence]

Does anybody know it the Accelerator s3 is still compatible with the Gigabyte Radeon HD 7770?

The heatsink is compatible, the backplate might be not. You might also think to the Accelero S1 Plus (an S3 without the backplate).
Check also wheter it fits your case, as it's relatively huge.

BTW, meanwhile try to cook a custom fan curve for your card with Speedfan or Afterburner.

[valmar]

Does anybody know it the Accelerator s3 is still compatible with the Gigabyte Radeon HD 7770?

The heatsink is compatible, the backplate might be not. You might also think to the Accelero S1 Plus (an S3 without the backplate).
Check also wheter it fits your case, as it's relatively huge.

BTW, meanwhile try to cook a custom fan curve for your card with Speedfan or Afterburner.

Hey Luca, thanks for your reply. I completely disassambled the stock cooler/fan now, cleaned it, put a little bit of WD40 into the bearing of the fan and also decoupled it from the PCB by putting some smaller pieces of kitchen sponge between those two. Worked out pretty well. I can still hear the fan a bit but the rattling is gone and it's a lot better now. The actually really noisy part is now the rusty old mechanical harddrive that's in there and causing lots of vibrations. Gonna replace that with a SSD and see if I can live with the overall result including the stock GPU cooler

[valmar]

@Luca I replaced the HDD now with a SSD and the noise of the GPU fan is still very noticable so I guess I'll try the Accelero. I got a few questions though:

1. How do you know that the front plate is compatible?
2. Is the backplate required?
3. Is the S1 still being sold? I can't find a single shop where I can buy it.

[quest_for_silence]

1. How do you know that the front plate is compatible?

Because the mounting holes are the same even on not-reference cards and the backplate is not strictly required to secure the heatsink (check the PDF manual online).

3. Is the S1 still being sold? I can't find a single shop where I can buy it.

I can't help: in Italy it's still being sold, though it's not widely available (and AC doesn't list it anymore on the website).

[edh]

You don't really need the backplate, you can install the cooler without it and the standard screws will just stand about 20mm proud. Alternatively you can do as I did and install the cooler without the backplate by using some of the shorter screws included in the box which are intended for mounting the side clips:
viewtopic.php?p=598499#p598499

I am now left with a nice big aluminium heatsink which I can hacksaw up as required.

[valmar]

@Luca Thanks, I'll check it out

@edh I love your compact setup. Looks really nice.