Well, it depends where the space is being taken up. I currently have a 56k modem under my graphics card so there's no space for a large cooler UNDER it. Some of the passive coolers appear to have the giant heatsink part OVER the card.

For example: http://www.aerocool.us/cooler/vm-101/vm-101-feature.htm

Holy crap that's big.

Oddly, the other one that I found on newegg seems to be no longer on the Aerocool website.

What I really can't understand is how anyone SLI links graphics cards these days. The cards get ridiculously hot with the stock coolers, and the larger coolers take up so much space that you wouldn't be able to fit in the second GPU.
Surely replacing the FAN on your card can't make that much difference?

shite, that is big. however, if you have a small fan, about 80mm or so, you can hot-glue it to the back of your card right where the processor is, and it will help cool a lot...as long as you hot glue in a way that it allows gaps for air to leave from the sides. a member here did that but i dont know where the thread went.

You mean hot melt glue from a glue gun? Hmm. Would I need to be super careful about where the glue itself went? I assume it's an insulator, but I wouldn't want to mess up the card somehow.

Any idea roughly how many degrees Centigrade of improvement I'd get by doing that? Sounds like it's worth thinking about, at least. Though it's a pity you can't just BUY a fan that comes with clips to attach to a card like this. You'd think it would be a pretty obvious product to sell.

Hmm. I think I DO have a spare 80mm fan. The one from my front panel in my old case.

http://www.neoseeker.com/forums/17/t1321391-easy-graphics-card-temperature-drop-modification/

Is that the guy? From his post it looks like he had the fan SUCKING air from the back of the GPU rather than by blowing onto it. Any advice on which way around would actually be best? For that matter, directly onto the card, or blowing across it?

yeah the hot glue doesnt conduct electricity. also, the bigger the fan, the bigger its hub. this is a problem, because placing the fan smack over the processor wont do anything, so youll need to offset it to the left or right on larger fans. the smaller the better (but not too small of course - im talking fan sizes like the stock ones on CPU's 10 years ago.

Well, I found the thread you meant. At least, A thread where someone did the same thing. On neoseeker, and you posted in it, so I assume it's the one.

I sent the thread creator a PM to see if has any advice on the matter.

My main concerns are how much space there is above the card, though honestly there should be craploads. Then how to connect the power to the fan. I assume I just plug it directly into one of the MANY cables hanging off my PSU.

What I actually need advice on is whether it would be best to have it blowing onto the card or sucking. The other guy had it sucking, which is why he didn't need an air space.

If I have it blowing I guess I'll have to rig up some kind of stilts made of plastic. Or... just a big pile of glue? What do you think?

What I'm not super happy about is having a really hot glue gun on my card.

And for that matter... What stops the card from MELTING the glue. I don't know how hot the glue's melting point is.

To be honest, I haven't actually tried turning down the resolution in Crysis, and no, I have the stock fan.

Well now that's just weird. I wonder why you get cooler temperatures than I do, if we have the same cooler, and I've got more fans. (Or do you have lots of case fans near the GPU or something?)

quote DG

Well now that's just weird. I wonder why you get cooler temperatures than I do, if we have the same cooler, and I've got more fans. (Or do you have lots of case fans near the GPU or something?)

That could be for a ton of different reasons. Your ambient temps could be different. The airflow in your case could be different. Your GPU produces more heat then his(Which is possible because every single chip is different), or maybe there is bad contact between your chip and it's cooler.

I have a front 12cm fan, a side 12cm fan, and a rear 8cm fan.

Meanwhile I'm currently using...

A front 120mm fan. A rear 120mm fan. A side 400mm fan.

Apparantly your card is just awesome.

Lol. I suppose yours is the GTX though, and is a more powerful card.

Oops. I forgot you had the GT. Yeah, I think that's probably a bit cooler. Still, quite a difference.

I've actually managed to overclock the GTX now. Not too far, not far enough to heat it up more noticably. I find myself wondering why anyone bothers. It doesnt seem to make much difference.

WHOA. My friend also has a GT. His is currently running at 75C IDLE! Should be scared crapless? I suspect his fan might have fluff in it.

This message was edited by DG on Jul 07 2009.

quote

What I'm not super happy about is having a really hot glue gun on my card.

And for that matter... What stops the card from MELTING the glue. I don't know how hot the glue's melting point is.

you have the PCB in the way of the processor, so its not going to damage the processor. also, youre not applying the hot glue right underneath the processor. youre applying it in the four corners where the fan would be. and i dont know what the melting point of hot glue is, but it should sustain high temps, especially when there is a fan near it (the fan would also end up cooling the glue).

quote

I've actually managed to overclock the GTX now. Not too far, not far enough to heat it up more noticably. I find myself wondering why anyone bothers. It doesnt seem to make much difference.

well thats the problem. you did a very tiny overclock. of course youre not going to notice much, if anything. tiny overclocks are simply going to give you, probably half a second shorter loading times or something. the sweet stuff is in the higher overclocks.

quote hiigaran

sweet stuff is in the higher overclocks.

Depending on the game though.

OP what do you mean by tiny overclock?

Or did you post numbers that I just didn't see?

Well, I left the shader clock linked to the core clock.

My original clock speeds were:

Core: 576Mhz
Ram: 900Mhz.

I overclocked to
Core: 620Mhz
Ram: 1000Mhz

In comparison to the overclock I've seen which had a core speed of over 750Mhz, that's nothing.

I just had Crysis Warhead playing on 1680 by 1050 Resolution, on full settings for everything apart from Anti-aliasing, which the game doesn't even need. NO LAG. I got a bit of lag just now on a mission where I'm riding a speeding train at insane velocities while blasting everything in sight, but I think that was pushing it.

That was using the overclocked settings. I'd not tried Warhead without overclocking. Maybe I should test it.