BFG 6800GT - Cooling okay?

[Eclipse556]

Looking into getting a BFG 6800GT, wondering how the stock cooling is on them? One of the reasons I want to go with BFG is the lifetime warranty, and if i remove the stock cooling i void the warranty...so....is the cooling even any good?

 

[Xed]

mine runs around 52c idle and is not loud at all, though a lot of people complain theirs is /shrug

 

[TantrumusMaximus]

Stock does ok after running CS Source for hours I had around 76 deg with the stock HS and fan.

I run SLI and have 2 Arctic Cooling NV Silencer 5's after the same scenario I max out at around 64 deg and I have since overclocked the GPUs to 423/1102 and the noise is FAR less with these on the vid cards.

 

[nOObBooB]

Well i look at it this way, Since there is a lifetime warrenty why do you care about cooling it. If it over heats in which it shouldnt, or you run into any other problem of some sort you just claim your lifetime warrenty. So i wouldnt bother worrying about cooling for it.

 

[CraigRT]

I heard their cooling is excellent for stock.

 

[uOpt]

I am pretty sure they are the one who had two designs.First they had a design with 2 small fans which apparently is sub-optimal and later switches to have one fan.

 

[MDE]

Originally posted by: MartinCracauer
I am pretty sure they are the one who had two designs.First they had a design with 2 small fans which apparently is sub-optimal and later switches to have one fan.

You're right, but you have it backwards. They went from the single fan (Nvidia reference heatsink) to a dual fan hairdryer. You can turn the fans down to a bearable level with a version of Gainward's ExperTool.

 

[zerocool84]

thier one with the dual blue led's is fairly loud when things get hot but you should be busy playing the game and not paying attention to ur card. the dual fan does have a heatpipe on it and a copper base which is pretty sweet with dual led's.

 

[ss284]

The dual fan heatsink is a piece of crap, even with reapplied thermal paste.

Try to find the one fan version, or get an NV5.

-Steve

 

[THUGSROOK]

Originally posted by: ss284
The dual fan heatsink is a piece of crap...

 

[TantrumusMaximus]

Originally posted by: nOObBooB
Well i look at it this way, Since there is a lifetime warrenty why do you care about cooling it. If it over heats in which it shouldnt, or you run into any other problem of some sort you just claim your lifetime warrenty. So i wouldnt bother worrying about cooling for it.

Point taken. I am concerned more with the noise levels. The silencer does a better job at cooling and is FAR quieter. You can't even hear the fans when the case is closed.

 

[orangat]

A quiet version would be the heavy ass heatsink Leadtek. The fan runs slow and makes very little noise - perfect for quiet pc's.

 

[DKlein]

Mine's a bit loud (loudest component until I turn up my CPU fan, at which point there's no way in hell you're hearing anything else), but otherwise has great cooling. Even at 412/1.19 the thing ran within limits for 1hr of rthdrib. Hot, but within limits (around 80C I belive). That's with about a 35-45C system temp, <30C mem temp, 50C CPU temp. In general gaming though, it runs a bit cooler. Maybe 70C or so, well under the 120C shut-off.

 

[Spike]

My stock dual fan cooled the card decently, I was getting 52c idle and 68-72c under load when running at 400/1100. It never went into 'high speed' mode except on startup but was still very loud. I replace it with a NV silencer 5 and now get same idle, but 64c under load at 420/1100 and can't hear it at all.

The stock cooled fine, but since I was overclocking and thus voiding the warranty anyway I decided to use a better cooler.

-spike

 

[nOObBooB]

Well I have a 6800GT and i barely hear it, its like 2 ft away from me. It just gets drained out in the background

 

[Spike]

Originally posted by: nOObBooB
Well I have a 6800GT and i barely hear it, its like 2 ft away from me. It just gets drained out in the background

Alot of it depends on your system. I run dual 120mm fans @ 8v and a single 80mm CPU fan at 8v so my system is fairly quiet. When I had the stock cooler, I could crank the fans to 12v and drown out the noise, but just barely.

Noisy system = stock cooler ok
Quiet system = stock cooler is the suck

-spike

 

[Machine350]

The way I see it is that the stock cooler has to be decent because the card comes overclocked right out of the factory.

 

[nOObBooB]

Well, i live in a dorm. So there is always alot of background noise, or i am always listening ot music. But after getting closer to it, the stock fan is somewhat noisy. The NV5 artic cooler does drop the sound considerablely my firned has one and its barey noticable. But i leave it stock so i dont mess wiht my warrenty and there is alwasy music playing.