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mikeymike
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Which ATI 5770 HSF?

Sun Jan 09, 2011 9:04 am

This isn't urgent, as mine is working absolutely fine, I'm just considering at some point in the future to get a replacement HSF for it which is quieter / better than the stock one. I've already used the Catalyst Control Centre's fan management to bring the fan speed down to the minimum, but I would like it quieter still.
 
potatochobit
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Re: Which ATI 5770 HSF?

Sun Jan 09, 2011 2:58 pm

sell the 5770 on ebay and buy a different card
an aftermarket cooler will cost you like 60$ and you have to clean the VRM chips
if your gpu fans are on stock settings and it's too noisy for you then you may have different problems like a computer case with big holes for fans
a 6850 or 460 might be quieter though, I have a sound proof case and I can't hear the 6850 under 50% fan speed
 
mikeymike
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Re: Which ATI 5770 HSF?

Mon Jan 10, 2011 3:36 am

potatochobit wrote:
sell the 5770 on ebay and buy a different card
an aftermarket cooler will cost you like 60$ and you have to clean the VRM chips
if your gpu fans are on stock settings and it's too noisy for you then you may have different problems like a computer case with big holes for fans
a 6850 or 460 might be quieter though, I have a sound proof case and I can't hear the 6850 under 50% fan speed


Ditching the card for a new one just puts me back at square one from when I built this PC - what graphics card to choose which performs well and runs quietly. The 5770 was the quietest as well as decent-performing at the time, however I couldn't find a review of a number of different brands of 5770. The case is a Coolermaster Elite 330. It has a hole/tube for CPU cooling, but there aren't any other particularly large holes to account for the sound. I'm a bit fussy about how loud my computer is :)
 
BlackStar
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Re: Which ATI 5770 HSF?

Mon Jan 10, 2011 7:29 am

I can feel you. I bought the 4850 back in the day and it's stock fan drove me crazy (it never passed 41% under normal use but it was still too loud - even though review sites said it was silent).

What I did was buy an Accelero S1 for 20€ and strap a 12cm fan on top (Scythe S-Flex undervolted to ~700rpm). I also bought a pack of dirt cheap heatsinks for the VRMs.

Result? Absolute silence, temperatures cut in half and huge overclocking potential. Don't go for full fanless, it's not worth the hassle - get a nice, big cooler and a silent fan and you'll be fine. (Just keep your old heatsink around, so you can repurpose the new one once you upgrade your GPU).
 
flip-mode
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Re: Which ATI 5770 HSF?

Mon Jan 10, 2011 9:02 am

BlackStar wrote:
I can feel you. I bought the 4850 back in the day and it's stock fan drove me crazy (it never passed 41% under normal use but it was still too loud - even though review sites said it was silent).
My 4850 with reference cooling is silent at idle and when gaming it doesn't bother me. Do you guys need silence when gaming? That's unnecessary for me.

I did an aftermarket cooler on a GPU once. It was worth it at the time but GPU coolers were much worse in those days (Geforce 7900 GS).

I have a 5770 with the reference cooler and, again, it's basically silent when idling. Under load, the fan is a little more noticeable than the 4850 fan because the fan produces something akin to a growling sound, but, I'm OK with it.
 
BlackStar
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Re: Which ATI 5770 HSF?

Mon Jan 10, 2011 9:20 am

flip-mode wrote:
My 4850 with reference cooling is silent at idle and when gaming it doesn't bother me. Do you guys need silence when gaming? That's unnecessary for me.


The 4850 was obnoxious while gaming and very annoying during idle. Even worse, the fan would spin up and change pitch while scrolling windows and playing flash content.

That said, I was using a Scythe Ninja CPU cooler with a 800rpm fan, a Seasonic S12 430W (older model, which is completely silent) and three Samsung HDs on elastic suspension[1] (plus a silent Intel SSD). The 4850 on idle was at least twice as loud as any other component in that system.

Definitely not silent.

[1] http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/vi ... p?p=304344
 
flip-mode
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Re: Which ATI 5770 HSF?

Mon Jan 10, 2011 10:45 am

BlackStar wrote:
flip-mode wrote:
My 4850 with reference cooling is silent at idle and when gaming it doesn't bother me. Do you guys need silence when gaming? That's unnecessary for me.
The 4850 was obnoxious while gaming and very annoying during idle. Even worse, the fan would spin up and change pitch while scrolling windows and playing flash content.
Wow, that sucks. Mine has never done any such thing. It's been a model citizen; best GPU ownership experience I've ever had.

That said, I was using a Scythe Ninja CPU cooler with a 800rpm fan, a Seasonic S12 430W (older model, which is completely silent) and three Samsung HDs on elastic suspension[1] (plus a silent Intel SSD). The 4850 on idle was at least twice as loud as any other component in that system.
Weird. I also have a Scythe Ninja, some special $16 Scythe that is the loudest thing in the system when the system is at idle. That fan is slated to be replaced. I'm somewhat upset about it because I've never spent so much on a fan. Something in the bearings is making noise, although the bearings are those FDB type. The Antec fan that came with my case is quieter.
 
BlackStar
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Re: Which ATI 5770 HSF?

Mon Jan 10, 2011 11:39 am

flip-mode wrote:
BlackStar wrote:
flip-mode wrote:
My 4850 with reference cooling is silent at idle and when gaming it doesn't bother me. Do you guys need silence when gaming? That's unnecessary for me.
The 4850 was obnoxious while gaming and very annoying during idle. Even worse, the fan would spin up and change pitch while scrolling windows and playing flash content.
Wow, that sucks. Mine has never done any such thing. It's been a model citizen; best GPU ownership experience I've ever had.


Open Ati CCC and monitor its fan speed while slowly scrolling techreport.com or arstechnica.com. If you are using the stock fan design, it should spin up by ~10%. Listen carefully and you should be able to hear the difference in pitch (or maybe don't do that, because once you notice it, it won't go away).

Now, I'm very happy with the GPU itself. Excellent value for money and great performance (for the games I play).

It's not that the stock heatsink & fan are bad either. In fact, the fan should be inaudible in your *typical* system, where the hard-mounted 3.5'' drives and CPU fan will cover its noise.

Unfortunately (for me), I am a silence freak. I undervolt my CPU fan; I suspend my hard drives on elastic cords; I cut up my system case to reduce impedance and improve airflow. After those modifications, the 4850 becomes the most audible component by far. (After I took care of that, the loudest components became the hard drives - but the noise was low enough and consistent that I could live with it).

That said, I was using a Scythe Ninja CPU cooler with a 800rpm fan, a Seasonic S12 430W (older model, which is completely silent) and three Samsung HDs on elastic suspension[1] (plus a silent Intel SSD). The 4850 on idle was at least twice as loud as any other component in that system.
Weird. I also have a Scythe Ninja, some special $16 Scythe that is the loudest thing in the system when the system is at idle. That fan is slated to be replaced. I'm somewhat upset about it because I've never spent so much on a fan. Something in the bearings is making noise, although the bearings are those FDB type. The Antec fan that came with my case is quieter.


You are using the 1200rpm or 1600rpm model, correct? These make a lot of noise when running full speed.

Solution:
- for the 1600rpm model (Scythe S-Flex "F"), remove it from the motherboard and connect it to a molex adapter *inverted* (green wire to red and vice versa). This will drop it to 5V and ~600rpm which is silent. Don't worry about cooling either: Scythe Ninja + 600rpm is enough for an overclocked 65nm Core 2 Duo (45nm should be better; for quad cores or more extreme overclocks see below).
- the above procedure won't work for the 1200rpm model (Scythe S-Flex "E") as 5V is too low. Check whether your BIOS supports fan control and turn that on. Alternatively, install fan control software for your OS: lm-sensors for Linux or SpeedFan for Windows.

The S-Flexes are great fans, if slightly overpriced. They are completely silent below 700rpm and make very smooth air noise until ~1000rpm (better than Antecs on low which spin at around 1000-1200rpm). Above 1000rpm air turbulence becomes a problem and the fans themselves make audible motor noise - they are not silent anymore (then again, I've never heard a silent fan at >1000rpm).
 
mikeymike
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Re: Which ATI 5770 HSF?

Tue Jan 11, 2011 2:35 am

flip-mode wrote:
I have a 5770 with the reference cooler and, again, it's basically silent when idling. Under load, the fan is a little more noticeable than the 4850 fan because the fan produces something akin to a growling sound, but, I'm OK with it.


This is the sort of thing I read about the 5770.

My system spec (with regard to cooling):

AMD Athlon II X4 630, stock frequency, stock cooler (currently running at 1600rpm approx)
Corsair VX450W (AFAIK just like the Seasonic)
Coolermaster Elite 330 inc 12cm fan, running running at about 700rpm
Gigabyte ATI HD 5770 (don't know the code, here's an image: http://www.alphacity.co.nz/images/consu ... gi_big.jpg)

The first time the computer booted, I was so disappointed, as I've built plenty of systems of the same spec that mine is, just minus the graphics card and they're almost silent, and this one was like it had a 3000rpm fan running inside it. I was nervous about modifying the fan setting in the driver because I assumed that the default would be as low as it can safely go already, but apparently not.

Now the system is pretty quiet, and most of the time the noise level doesn't bother me. I don't think I get the problem that another poster described with the 4850 that it cranks up the fan for the slightest of things, but I have NoScript installed so I don't get bombarded with Flash ads amongst other things.

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