Super cooling the 9700 pro! Very cool :D
 

Hello People,
As you may have seen in a past post I had the chance to get another 9700 pro card for dirt, literally $30 *LOL* after selling my msi 4600ti. The reason I did this is I have heard the dx9 and 3.0 drivers have been working good together, also mainly did this because when the NV30 comes out the resale on the 9700pro will be higher than the 4600ti I had hehe. The card I have is a built by ati oem card.
First impressions, it looked just like every 9700 pro card I had previously "ugly", unless you have an msi board or soyo fire dragon. Plugged it in and ran it on my system for a day or so to make sure it was stable, could crank out an overclock of 351 / 688 using powerstrip, not as much as I had been able to overclock the previous versions. Anymore on the chip and it would lock up quick, any more on the ram and had goofy artifacts. One cool thing is the latest drivers running DX9 seem to work flawless so far and I have had no problems with all my games! SWEET! Kind of surprised me! Finally an ati card working in my system. The control panel seems to be easy to use now as NVIDIA with a few more options. So kudos to ati for finally making a card that is working for me without me having to find fix after fix to play a game.
On to the whole point of the article, if you have a 9700pro you know ATI is kind of retarded, well someone is over there. The card suffers from the same sunken chip as most of the other r300 cards. I stuck a perfectly straight piece of aluminum across the shim and poof, could see an air gap between the chip and the aluminum, used a ruler and also a flat heat sink and confirmed this air gap. This is probably why they stick that wad of yellow crap on the bottom of the cheesy stock sink. The reason I was looking into this is because just like the 3 other 9700 pro cards I had, this one runs hotter than the hood of a black car here in Arizona in the summer time. Touch the sink after playing a game and you will probably pull back with a blister, same goes for the ram but I have not addressed that yet! Well to make a long story short I browsed the net and found pretty much nothing when it comes to aftermarket heat sinks for it to help tame it down. Took a drive over to the local fried electronics to see if they had something I could make a sink out of on the shelf when I came across a Zalman ZM80A-HP passive heatpipe heatsink. Right away a smile came to my face because this baby was HUGE! I do not mean kind of big, the package was heavy! Annoyed by the thought of a passive cooler I thought old Zalman had made a good looking product and I could see modification potential. I took it home and started to install it right away, note that I had to goop a huge amount of artic silver on the chip to make sure it made good contact with the base heat transfer plate thingy whatever. Long story short, the product was good, installed with ease. Please note the photo that I have with the back heat transfer plate thing is wrong, I have it on backwards because I do not read instructions that well, actually I did not ready them at all :whack: can ya tell I am a tool guy..?? haha. Anyways both arrows on the base plates should point to the pci slot when installed.
SWEET! Got it all done, installed it and it works! And please note that the heat pipe does transfer heat well on this item, after running games for an hour the top was a little warm!! I placed an 80mm fan on the back over the chip side to help cool, defeats zalmans idea of a noiseless heatsink but who cares, I sure don't! I want performance baby! Well after running UT2003 for awhile and also ww2 microcrap flight sim3 I felt the bottom sink and it was actually cooler than the top by a tiny bit! Reached in and felt the bottom plate that attaches to the chip and it was cool also! The the real test. I started overclocking the chip, and overclocked it and then overclocked it some more! Finally I found a point were the actual chip started to cause some artifacts but it did NOT lock up! Woo hoo! So I backed it off a but and ran a test, first try at 392 / 688 I scored 14,942 on 3dse :nod: not bad! As soon as I get the ram cooled I am hoping to break 15,000+ without overclocking my processor! Anyways this setup works, cools the ati chip to a comphy temp and puts a smile on my face! Again congrats to ati for finally fixing the drivers so they work good, and ati... fire that guy who measured the shim vs. the chip!
[img][/img]

More pics...

And some more pics, if you wanna kinda see an order of install go from the bottom up! Soon to come, a ram sink upgrade when I figure it out and get the parts :rocker:

NICE!

how about the ram sinks?

Like I said, the ram cooling is soon to come! I have to make some peices hehe

AI has finally succumbed to the temptations of the dark side. :(


It was nice knowing you AI. :wavey:

LOL
:lol:

i have an ATI Rage Pro in my old machine
and still have a spare Geforce2 MX200

and using a Geforce4 Ti4200 128mb

im in a little of both worlds

Hey cik, read why I go tthe ati *LOL* I got it because it will have higher resale value as soon as the nv30 comes out hehehe..

I guess if there is anyone that can get that piece of junk to work it'll be you AI.

Until then, prepare to do battle my old friend. :P

*LOL* nerd :P anyways the card really is working well under DX9 and the new catylist 3.0 drivers or whatever there called. Kinda suprised me! Just cannot wait for the nv30 hehe

Hello People!
Well here is the ram cooling section of my 9700 pro card. The ram gets damn hot so I thought I would chill it out! Now that my 9700 sports more aluminum than some small japanese compacts I am ready for some serious overclocking! Woohoo! Will follow up later on the results, do not have time right now. The rear main sink on the heat pipe is soooo close to the card that I had to use two long small flat heat sinks on them instead of the other taller ones.
Were did I get silver ram sinks like that..?? hehe well they started out life as 3 blue thermaltake heat sinks from their ram cooling kit. I soaked them in CLR for about 2 weeks which the acid in it removed the blue anodization. Then I took my handy dremel and cut them up, they used 600 grit, then 1000 grit and then 2000 grit to flatten and polish the back side of the for max heat transfer. Turned out good I think! It may be goofy overkill but I think it's cool and adds 3000 points on 3dse in looks haha!

another pic [img][/img]

i wonder how heavy that whole card weighs now...
man, AI, you are fully extending the art of air cooling...

and ss, cool new theme :thumbsup:
but what happened to soccer love?

Yes it does weigh a bit! I have to be cautious in moving my rig not to shake it or somthing could break. I think it is goofy looking but hell it works! Kinda funny, you can bairly see the 9700pro hideing under it! wonder if it will help my overclocking at all! Well I am off to bed, I am tired and dont wanna mess with it anymore, was working to long on the sinks!

I think the most important question is...
HOW can I get a 9700 Pro for around $30 bucks.

Way to go AI, Air cooling to the extreme! simply impressive!

Hey mad :) Just sell your 4600 ti :) Live with the 9700 and then sell it for the nv30 and only shell out $100-$150 extra for that new monster card!

my friend is getting 100 fps with fsaa on at 1024x768 in battlefield
so far, the dx9 is working wonders for him

AI, do u know how much more i have to pay if i cash in my Ti4200 128mb w/ VIVO?

for a 9700 or a nv30..? 9700's are going for around $270 right now, and the nv30 will be int he $400-$500 range...

for a 9700 pro

if i cash in my Ti4200 128mb w/ VIVO
how much more USD do i have to pay to ATI?

How much do you think you can get out of that 4200..?? probably $175 if it has vivo... so probably would have to drop in $100-$125 for the 9700 pro.

hmm
still some money though

but i dont think this baby will work well with my comp since the whole comp is a big bottleneck
1.2GH
pc2100 DDR

slow...........

Congratulations Acurateimage::I am glad you finally agreed that the Radeon cards do in fact work. Believe it or not a great majority of these cards are just as good as the one you have now. Since you are intent on getting a GF FX card. How would you feel if you got a crap card. How would you feel if you couldn't get the card to work for you at all. Just remembering the statements you made about the Radeon 9700 Pro in reference to a while back. Just remember you can get bad components from anyone, including nVidia. Sencerly I don't wish any bad situations on you from anyone. I just would appreciate a little more tollerance, when I make a suggestion of using a better attitude over a piece of hardware. I happen to like the Radeon cards, and have used nVidia cards in customers systems. I actually have a lot of trouble in getting nVidia cards and drivers to work together like I want them to. Anyway I am happy for you that you were able to get this card for $30.00. If you run across another let me know will you? Thanks BJ

I never said the card was crap, I felt the drivers were crap and I still stand by that *LOL* The newest drivers seem to be working good. Also if the nv30 is a crap card or does not work well with it's drivers I would be more than happy to trash on it, I am not here to be diplomatic, I call it as I see it and at that time with those drivers I felt the 9700pro was worthless. Now that the drivers are working I find it an interesting peice! In the pc world I try to never have a brand preference, I keep an open mind an try just about everything. I will be going for the 16,000 mark at least tonight hehehe :)

when is GeforceFX expected to be on retailer shelves?

supposed to be on the shelves somtime in mid febuary or late... I am figureing late at best.

I was reading an article Monday this week, and the people talking to the hi-ups at nVidia are saying the two lower end GF-FX will probably be available to retail from mid to late February 03.
The Hi-End GF-FX will be doing good if it gets to the retail customer by mid April 03.
They are supposedly having some problems with the new VPU.

Right on :) well that sucks, will be a great card if it ever gets here! Got a new case today, an aluminum version of my 40 pound antec, my girl is getting the heavy one for she never moves it :) Will post pics later :D

ah
the aluminum one is so light its like made of plastic

i felt one before when i went to Frys
it was on sale

The last one I purchased is aluminum, the good looking blue color with a full side window.
You will like the aluminum case, it weighs almost nothing.
I just started handling the Xaser cases, they are the same case as Antec. Just made by Thermalright, comes with a digidoc built in the top of the drive bays.
Has a special drive bay cover that forms an X but a real pretty design. Pretty expensive compared to the ones we have. Just about the same price, but without any power supply.

did ya see mine in the general section..?

i think the thermaltake xaser is a bit crappy for what they charge
antec cases are more generic so my likings

just some opinions

This case is called or made by turbo case... it is called x-pider. Pretty cool case I think :)

any antec style cases are good

except old Chaintec
some of them have a plate on the PSU support bars that kinda blocks the airflow from the PSU

eviltechie ::If you will go to buyXtreme.com you can get that Xaser case for less than $100.00 for the black case and the white is less than $130.00. They do not contain a powersupply either, so that does make them more expensive than that. But still a lot less than Thermaltake gets for them.

i see
well i dont like the looks of xasers very much though
too complicated that it loses its beauty

im not a person who would put stage 2 body kit on my car
i like the way it is...

Does anyone have a pic of their case with the Zalman inside.... I want to see how much room is left...

which one of their sinks are you looking to see..??