yes use ram sinks, it will run very very hot without. it was one of the chief complains of the x800 was its lack of ram cooling, the later 79xx cards where using GDDR3 built on a smaller node

candle_86 wrote:

yes use ram sinks, it will run very very hot without. it was one of the chief complains of the x800 was its lack of ram cooling, the later 79xx cards where using GDDR3 built on a smaller node

Thanks for the clarification. Guess it's time to break out the thermal adhesive. 🤣

I think you can get away with running the memory without heatsinks if you have good air flow over the card.

I can get the DDR1! memory on my Geforce FX 5900 Ultra all the way to 1000 MHz (500 MHz DDR) without heatsinks. With the stock cooler this was impossible as the GPU heated up the memory.

obobskivich wrote:

candle_86 wrote:

yes use ram sinks, it will run very very hot without. it was one of the chief complains of the x800 was its lack of ram cooling, the later 79xx cards where using GDDR3 built on a smaller node

Thanks for the clarification. Guess it's time to break out the thermal adhesive. 🤣

Do you still have the socket cooler for it? The ram sink that goes around it can be removed from the rest of the houseing and screwed down if the cooler your using on the core will fit. I know my Artic Silencer let me keep the stock ram cooling on my 6800GS

Skyscraper wrote:

I think you can get away with running the memory without heatsinks if you have good air flow over the card.

I can get the DDR1! memory on my Geforce FX 5900 Ultra all the way to 1000 MHz (500 MHz DDR) without heatsinks. With the stock cooler this was impossible as the GPU heated up the memory.

Interesting - on the 6800 it seems like the coolers are mostly separate, but from pictures of 5900Us (one of the few FX cards i don't actually own 🤣) the sink looks more connected - like on the 5800U (which I've long suspected suffers from a similar heating problem). The HSF I'm going to replace the stock blower with is a downdraft configuration (Zalman VF700), and the case this is going into has good airflow too, so maybe it wouldn'tve been a problem. 😊

Anyways, I've pulled the entire 6800 sink apart and I'm waiting on the thermal adhesive to finish curing with new RAMsinks - I figured why worry about it later, and since I've got a big bin of old heatsinks, it wasn't hard to find a few that matched (I actually found an entire set of 8 that looked the same for the RAM, and then a few others for some VRMs and other stuff that was exposed underneath the cooler). Once that's done I'm going to swap a Zalman heatsink onto the GPU (which wouldn't fit with the Ultra's RAM cooler - I've seen pictures where people have cut up the OEM cooler to fit a Zalman sink, but I didn't feel like powering up the hacksaw first thing in the morning 🤣 🤣 )). It's probably totally overkill, but I think the card will still end up weighing less than it did originally, so I'm not worried about PCB flex, and worst case scenario I just "wasted" a bunch of spare sinks, but it's not like it hurts anything to have excess cooling (that said, while looking through my heatsinks, I found that Arctic Accelero Mono Plus can actually fit on 6800 Ultra - I'm sure it would run at or near ambient temperatures pretty much constantly too (that thing kept my 4890 PCS close enough to room temp...6800U is like what? 1/3rd the TDP of that? 🤣 🤣)).

This is how the FX 5900 Ultra looks now. It used to run hot...
I dont have any good thermal adhesive that isnt more or less permanent, thats why I diddnt put heat sinks on the memory.

Yeah that's about like the Arctic cooler. It makes it a triple (almost quadruple) slot card; on my OC'd 4890 it would run pretty near ambient temperatures at idle, and load temperatures barely budged. That's like a 200W+ board; from an old Hexus (or was it IXBT?) review the 6800 Ultra is more like 70W. I think the Zalman VF700 will be "enough" for its needs. 🤣

The adhesive I used on the 6800 is probably permanent, but I figured what the heck - I really dislike the inverted blower design, so any competent replacement is an improvement, and I have no desire to go back to the OEM cooler.

obobskivich wrote:

Skyscraper wrote:

I think you can get away with running the memory without heatsinks if you have good air flow over the card.

I can get the DDR1! memory on my Geforce FX 5900 Ultra all the way to 1000 MHz (500 MHz DDR) without heatsinks. With the stock cooler this was impossible as the GPU heated up the memory.

Interesting - on the 6800 it seems like the coolers are mostly separate, but from pictures of 5900Us (one of the few FX cards i don't actually own 🤣) the sink looks more connected - like on the 5800U (which I've long suspected suffers from a similar heating problem). The HSF I'm going to replace the stock blower with is a downdraft configuration (Zalman VF700), and the case this is going into has good airflow too, so maybe it wouldn'tve been a problem. 😊

Anyways, I've pulled the entire 6800 sink apart and I'm waiting on the thermal adhesive to finish curing with new RAMsinks - I figured why worry about it later, and since I've got a big bin of old heatsinks, it wasn't hard to find a few that matched (I actually found an entire set of 8 that looked the same for the RAM, and then a few others for some VRMs and other stuff that was exposed underneath the cooler). Once that's done I'm going to swap a Zalman heatsink onto the GPU (which wouldn't fit with the Ultra's RAM cooler - I've seen pictures where people have cut up the OEM cooler to fit a Zalman sink, but I didn't feel like powering up the hacksaw first thing in the morning 🤣 🤣 )). It's probably totally overkill, but I think the card will still end up weighing less than it did originally, so I'm not worried about PCB flex, and worst case scenario I just "wasted" a bunch of spare sinks, but it's not like it hurts anything to have excess cooling (that said, while looking through my heatsinks, I found that Arctic Accelero Mono Plus can actually fit on 6800 Ultra - I'm sure it would run at or near ambient temperatures pretty much constantly too (that thing kept my 4890 PCS close enough to room temp...6800U is like what? 1/3rd the TDP of that? 🤣 🤣)).

The memory cooling plate should have thermal pads between the ram and it on stock 6800GT/GS/Ultra cards.

candle_86 wrote:

The memory cooling plate should have thermal pads between the ram and it on stock 6800GT/GS/Ultra cards.

On the 6800 Ultra, there's a "wrap-around" piece with pads that contact the RAM, and then a small (and very light/flimsy feeling) heatsink that bolts over the GPU itself. They're mostly independent pieces - you can remove them separately, and they don't seem to connect with each other in any meaningful way. That whole thing is then more or less shrouded by a plastic piece (which is where the mermaid/whatever sticker goes). On my 6800GT I couldn't say - it was a Leadtek card and the card was sandwiched between two very heavy copper pieces; both sides had pads for the RAM.

Alright, after nearly 3 hours the "fast curing" adhesive was not setting (directions said 30-60 minutes); being impatient and also not sure why it wasn't working, I cleaned it all off of the 6800. I had kind of a light-bulb moment while doing this though: VF700 can be mounted in two directions on cards with 4-hole mounts (where the stock cooler has 4 bolts in a square around the GPU), like the 6800 Ultra. So I thought, maybe if it was flipped the other way it'd clear the OEM sink - and it actually does!

I grabbed a few quick pictures of the end result:

As you can see, some of the VF700's tines are a little bent by the OEM cooler's pins, but the whole thing goes together quite nicely. I didn't have to wrestle with anything - the tines on the top bent out of the way very easily (like with most Zalman sinks, they're pretty easy to flex), and everything else seemed to line-up pretty well. I confirmed contact with the GPU by putting some TIM on, tightening it together, and checking if it was covering the right spot, and the VF700 is properly centering on the GPU (which is correct for the mounting arrangement, but I just wanted to make sure it wasn't being "pushed" out of the way). Kind of frustrating to have wasted the time waiting for the adhesive that didn't work, but I'm happy with the end result here. 😀

I'm surprised that I haven't seen anyone take one of the relatively flat, squirrel-cage fans from a 1U server and adapt it, somehow to one of these cards. (Although, this is essentially what many of the factory cooling designs look like--just not as powerful.) The first thing I would probably try is mounting one such that the open end is over the factory location for the fan (with the original fan removed) so it draws air through the fins and out the stock fan location, but you would definitely want to create a duct which exits the case so the squirrel-cage fan isn't simply blowing air into the case.

And of course those 1U squirrel-cage fans are very, very noisy so there's that. LoL!

But I would definitely stress the importance of cooling memory as it heavily affects latency. Even in the mid-90's when I used to run 30-pin simms through the tester, I'd run the Step-Up-Step-Down and Spike routines on them, then check their timing--an 80ns simm would heat up and run at 85-90ns. I can't say I know how much it affects modern memory, but given the amounts of heat they are subject to, I'm sure the IC's do not run at LAB SPEC because they are typically pushed harder/hotter than stock.

If you're REALLY into using a particular old card for nostalgic purposes, I would suggest recapping it with polymers if it doesn't already have them, just to help it run snappier, especially when pushing it past factory settings.

Wildcat REALiZM 800 has one of those low profile blowers, which works fairly well, but that wouldn't be easy to transpose onto this kind of card, and it would be louder than something like the VF700. I know some of the old Diamond FireGL cards also have low profile, high RPM blowers, like this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/390998462768 No idea how loud they are though; guessing "not pleasant" though.

a stock fan is louder than a VF-700 they are whisper quite even at 12v 🤣.

obobskivich wrote:

Alright, after nearly 3 hours the "fast curing" adhesive was not setting (directions said 30-60 minutes); being impatient and also not sure why it wasn't working, I cleaned it all off of the 6800. I had kind of a light-bulb moment while doing this though: VF700 can be mounted in two directions on cards with 4-hole mounts (where the stock cooler has 4 bolts in a square around the GPU), like the 6800 Ultra. So I thought, maybe if it was flipped the other way it'd clear the OEM sink - and it actually does!

I did something very similar to my 6800U. I have some of the Chinese VF700-inspired coolers. Maybe you've already seen this shot. I had to trim down the fins of the 6800 RAM cooler to fit.

As to the true cooling needs of those RAM chips, maybe a part number search would provide some TDP info?

Clockwise: 6800, 8500, 5200, 9800.

Maybe we should start a thread about history's most annoying GPU coolers. I have a HD 2900XT and X850XT PE now....... 😉

I just benched a bit with a PCI-E 6800GT.

The 1-slot stock cooler is sooo bad, I though changing the paste would improve the situation but the former owner had already done that with better paste than I have so I find my self advancing backwards once again 😀

I have better coolers but the memory cooling on my card is even more restrictive so unless I remove it no other cooler will fit.

candle_86 wrote:

a stock fan is louder than a VF-700 they are whisper quite even at 12v 🤣.

Some of my slower/lower power cards have quieter stock coolers (e.g. Radeon 9550), but yeah the VF700 is pretty quiet.

Anyways, I powered the 6800U up with the VF700, and I'm getting idle temps in the mid-50s. I don't know if that's high or low though. It's certainly much quieter than the OEM cooler. 😀

obobskivich wrote:

candle_86 wrote:

a stock fan is louder than a VF-700 they are whisper quite even at 12v 🤣.

Some of my slower/lower power cards have quieter stock coolers (e.g. Radeon 9550), but yeah the VF700 is pretty quiet.

Anyways, I powered the 6800U up with the VF700, and I'm getting idle temps in the mid-50s. I don't know if that's high or low though. It's certainly much quieter than the OEM cooler. 😀

50c is high for idle, are you running the cooler at 5v, 7v or 12v? For a 68xx series card you need to run it at 12v, the 5v and 7v are for the 6600/7600GT type cards

Actually that idle temp is probably fine for a 6800. These GPUs have limited idle power management.

See what it does when gaming on it. The NV shutdown temp is around 120C. 85C is probably a good target.

swaaye wrote:

Actually that idle temp is probably fine for a 6800. These GPUs have limited idle power management.

See what it does when gaming on it. The NV shutdown temp is around 120C. 85C is probably a good target.

Oh yeah, I know that NV30 and NV40 can take high temps - the driver control panel says 115* C for the 6800U. I'm not terribly worried about "high" temps on the card, I just have no frame of reference. I'll see what it does with AquaMark or 3DMark or some-such.

candle_86 wrote:

50c is high for idle, are you running the cooler at 5v, 7v or 12v? For a 68xx series card you need to run it at 12v, the 5v and 7v are for the 6600/7600GT type cards

12V; it's quiet enough that I don't bother with undervolting it. 🤣