You may remember a while back I cleaned out my computer, at the same time I decided to run without the side fan as it is a big source of noise. However I then ran into problems with my graphics card overheating, it got so bad that some games wouldn’t run for more than ten minutes (this is what held me back from starting World in Conflict). I did not want to turn the fan back on as it was a noticeable noise drop, so I decided to to have a go at installing a third-party GPU cooler. Today it arrived.
My graphics card is an Inno3D 8800GT, this is the budget end of the gpu market but it has served me very well. The cooling solution is pretty basic though, a simple fan and heatsink it blows away the hot air, this is what contributed to the overheating. Without a side fan providing cool air it was simply blowing the air only for it to end up back at the card still warm. This isn’t the fault of the cooler, I accept that I was the cause however it does highlight a weakness in my setup. So when looking for a third-party cooler I quickly realised I wanted on that sucked air over the card, then blew it out the back of the case preventing a build-up. One of the first I found was the Akasa Vortexx Neo, there are better fans of course but I didn’t want to spend £30+ on such a minor problem, in the end the Vortexx came to £13.98 a much easier price to swallow and according to various reviews it seemed quite capable.
Here is a picture of the box, which for some reason Amazon decided to send in a massive package.
And here is the cooler itself. I’m not advertising by the way, I just needed something to prevent making a mess. It’s no small thing, but then again neither are modern graphics cards, it is designed to fit a huge range of cards on both sides of the line. Check here for a full list. In the box (along with the cooler) was an Installation Manual, packet of plastic dampeners, screw nuts, thermal compound, thermal pads and a molex converter.
The first job was to remove the old heatsink, this was easier said than done and it took a screwdriver and some brute force to remove the strange holding pins on the back of the card. Eventually it came away though, next job was to clean it.
Unfortunately I was not prepared for this, what I really needed was some isopropyl alcohol but as I didn’t have any I had to think of something else. After a little research I found that using distilled water was an okay substitute provided it was used carefully, I didn’t have any of that either however my mum bought a Brita Filter jug a few months ago so I decided to use some from that. The reasoning behind using distilled water or isopropyl is that you don’t want any stray particles or residue left over at the end, so I took a big gulp and went for it. I DO NOT recommend this as a proper method, it is simply what I used in this situation and will have to hope it doesn’t come back to haunt me… With a bit of vigorous, but very light rubbing the thermal compound still on the chip came away.
The next step was to remove the passive fins from the RAM chips, the Vortexx completely covers the mid-setion of the card so I had to remove them. Lots of twisting and screaming later and they were all clear, this was the most painful part of the operation, those fins can really dig in. Again I had to clear the area before it was ready, the fins had been stuck on with some sort of adhesive pads and bits had broken off and remained stuck to the chip. I tried cleaning them off as I had the gpu but some of it wouldn’t budge, in the end I just had leave it on and hope it didn’t do any damage. (This is getting to be a dangerous trend…)
Now that the card was clear it was time to stick on the thermal pads. The instruction manual states that the pads are not meant to be sticky, since all they are there to do is make contact with the coolers heatsink. They were indeed pretty light and were more interested in sticking to my finger than the chip, it wasn’t too bad though and soon enough all the chips were ready.
I’ve never applied thermal compound before, and I don’t feel any more ready to do it now. I knew more or less the right amount to use, a grain of rice is often used as an example in various guides, the problem was spreading it. In the end I used a stiff bit of paper, which just about managed the job. I had originally planned to buy the cooler with a little jar of special thermal grease, however since the order I was planning to get that in still hasn’t happened I had to do without, I’d have much preferred to use that since it comes with a special applicator brush.
With the card prepared it was time to fit the cooler, but my graphics card had one more surprise in mind. The card comes with a strange black plate that runs along the edge of the card (possible to prevent scratching yourself when it’s in the case), although it is a very short plate, height-wise, it was big enough to prevent the cooler form sitting properly. This was a much easier problem to solve than the previous ones, I just removed the screws and took the plate off. Now that the cooler could sit properly I lay it down and put the card onto it (after removing the protective plastic), this made it much easier to line the four screws up. As a side note, the manual tells you to put on rubber rings onto the card first, but as mentioned in a review I read they were already on, which was nice. Next the plastic washers went on (there were six in total but only four screws) and then the nuts.
The card was now ready to be refitted in the case, I did just have to remove an extra backing plate to allow the warm air out. Job done it was now time for testing. Unfortunately I cannot offer you any graphs or statistics, as I mentioned my card is at the cheaper end and to save some money they decided not to fit temperature sensors, this is what partly lead to it taking me so long to narrow down the problem. There is one, real-world test I can offer though. As I mentioned, the overheating problems lead to me being unable to start playing World in Conflict, the card would crash and the driver had to be restarted before I ever finished a level. I played the very first level at least three times and each time it crashed just as I reached the bridge, this gives me a repeatable situation with which to test my new cooler. So I disconnected the side fan once more and tentatively pressed the power button. *No Signal*, aahhh, oh wait I forgot to reconnect the monitor cable… 
The computer powered up without a problem, I did notice the lack of side-fan things are noticeacbly better than they were before, however the Vortexx is the noisiest component in my case. (Except for if the CPU fan speeds up.) But that’s not too bad, as I’ve been sitting here writing I have noticed the drop in noise levels. I loaded up World in Conflict and started playing the first level, and managed to finish it without any hiccups. Phew. So it has been worth it, not just for the lack of crashing and less noise, but for the stability of my computer.
To finish, here is a picture that shows the card in action:
Blue.
inno3D made two different 8800GT’s, the one you have and the one I used to have (replaced with a GTX275 just this week actually) which used the NVidia reference design. I never had any trouble with heat on mine.
I guess the different coolers some manufactures use on theirs explain the fact I keep hearing people saying about 8800GT’s running hot despite the chip itself running a lot cooler than most 8800 cards.
I think it was a good enough cooler, but it does require good airflow which it wasn’t getting without the side-fan.
Without a temperature sensor it’s hard to pin down the exact cause.
Sounds nice.
Have you noticed much of an improvement?
With the GTX275 in I haven’t found much I can’t run at really high settings, UT3 runs with everything on, even motion blur which reduced it to a sideshow on the 8800GT. Tomb Raider Underworld it struggles with slightly (but I had AA on 16Q) and I had to turn off the post processing on Assassins Creed but I guess those two are just poorly optimised as it isn’t like they even look as good as UT3. And all this is with my new monitor which has half as many pixels again as the old one.
It’ll most likely be a long time before I upgrade my graphics card, but it’s nice to know that there is a difference even now.
Oh it really made a difference, As much diference as when I ugraded my CPU from an AMD X2 5600+ to a Core i7 920. I intended to do them both at the same time but figured the 8800GT would do me a while and the prices were only going down (saved about £50 by waiting I think).
To go into more detail on TR:U and AC both ran fine with everything maxed out, I just prefer a better frame rate to pretty pictures. I reduced the AA on TR:U to 4 times (More than enough) and with AC it may have been the Vsync that was making it feel slow rather than anything else.
Interestingly these upgrades has made little difference to source engine games. I guess this is because they are not GPU heavy and are not multithreaded. It isn’t like these games were not fine before though.
[...] the cooler. I was originally thinking of taking some step by step photographs like I did with the Akasa Vortexx Neo, but installation proved to be a little more long winded than I thought. So I’ve just taken [...]