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(editor's note - this article is now old and may contain outdated links and information)
Introduction
As of right now, I have exactly 8 hours before I usually wake up for school. Yes, I'm starting an article at midnight, and every minute it takes to write this article is a minute of sleep I have lost.
But I'm not worried about that, because I'm on a mission...
When you have a GeForce 256 DDR in your PC, about $100 in PC cooling equipment in a box next to your desk, and a digital camera to capture it all, it's hard to resist the urge to plug it all in and see what you can do. There's no real practical purpose to doing this... but it's fun! So, I give you my latest creation: "Extreme GeForce Cooling and Overclocking"! Technically, this guide and the techniques apply to any video card, but a GeForce was used for the tests.
What I Used
As I mentioned above, I had about $100 in cooling equipment just sitting in a box, waiting for our next project (that I will be starting this weekend, most likely). Included are: two 120mm fans, a slot cooler, a 50mm fan taken from a Pentium II cooler, a 40mm TOYO fan I used for my original TNT Tweak Guide, and a 50mm heatsink/fan made for cooling video cards. I wasn't planning on using all of these at once because there just wasn't enough room inside my teeny, cramped, mid-ATX tower... but they were all available.
Note: The only coolers I actually used for this project were the two huge 120mm fans and the slot cooler. The credit card was added so you'll know just how big these fans are. The airflow for these Sunon 120mm fans is about 90 CFM each (combined total of 180 CFM) and the slot cooler claims 42 CFM, I believe. The total between all three coolers should be about 242 CFM, if the manufacturers' claims are correct.
But wait, no reason to stop there! I looked around my room for the ultimate cooling device and I found one of my favorites: my Honeywell 215mm fan. This fan isn't for computers, but rather for cooling small rooms. It pumps out more air than any other fan in my house, and it is quite small. Since it uses a standard outlet and it can be placed directly next to my case, I decided... why not use it?
Isn't that a big nice fan? It sure makes the massive 120mm fans look small. You wouldn't believe the amount of air this thing moves (and the noise it makes)!
The Plan
I could easily have just used the 120mm fans and made this an exciting project, but why not go for it all? The plan for this guide was as follows:
-Find the room temperature.
-Measure temperature in Windows and how well the GeForce overclocks without the cooling.
-Run a benchmark or two to see the frame rate at the original clock speed.
-Play Unreal Tournament and Quake3 for an hour, then check the temperature again.
-Power down and remove the side cover.
-Install the slot cooler.
-Install the first 120mm fan in a good place.
-Install the other 120mm fan in a good place.
-Turn on my PC and hope it all works.
-If it works, turn the Honeywell fan on "High".
-Measure temperature in Windows.
-Try to overclock as high as possible while still being able to run Unreal Tournament and Quake3.
-Run the same benchmarks as before to compare frame rates at the new clock speed.
-Play Unreal Tournament and Quake3 for an hour to test stability.
-Check the temperature again when I'm done playing games.
I think that accounts for everything. The reason I checked the temperatures before and after was so I could show that the cooling either did or did not hold the temperature constant while the GeForce was overclocked. If you're going to setup a huge system cooling project, take the time to test your system BEFORE adding all the cooling equipment. This way you'll know exactly where you're at. Then you can decide if you really need the cooling, and if you decide to add it, you can see how much it helps after it's installed. Benchmarks always help too. :)
Now that the plan was set, I had to find ways to check the temperature. I had two options: my digital thermometer or my built in system monitor. Since the probes were smaller with the system monitor, that was my choice. System Monitor
The E2C System Monitor (2nd 5 1/4" bay), provided by AMK, has 8 temperature probes. I put one of the probes as close as I could to the GeForce's chip. I set it in between the heatsink/fan and the card itself, touching the tip against the chip. I taped it in place using a small piece of thermal tape I had left over from the kit that came with the System Monitor. Phew, maybe I should clean up that dust!
Ready, Set, Go!
I made all of my preliminary observations (you can see all my observations later in this guide under "Observations") and I started installing the components. Since I was planning on stacking the 120mm fans in some way, I knew I would have to install the slot fan first. These are very easy to install. It went directly into the slot and I screwed it in. Also, it is very close to the GeForce and it sucks air right off of it and out the back of the case.
Yes, I believe the dust is a problem! :)
Still Working!
After I installed the slot fan, I realized I had a problem: there was nothing to hold up the 120mm fans! I panicked and looked around my room frantically until I found a hard drive rail that would do the job. Rather than stick the fans directly on the GeForce (which could short out the card or stop the fan from spinning), I needed something to space it out. So I bolted the 120mm fan into the drive rail and put a nut on the other end of the bolt. Then I mounted the adjacent side of the rail to the holes for ventilation above the video card using another #6 bolt. Only 1 bolt lined up on the rail for the 120mm fan and for the case, so I screwed both in tight. Here's a pic:
With a 1" gap or so between the GeForce and the 120mm fan (blowing down on the card), this was just enough room to let the card breathe, for now. Also, I cleaned up the dust after installing the slot fan. I couldn't stand it anymore.
Installing the second 120mm fan was a bit more tricky. There was no room to mount it in most places, and the other places had no way to hold the card up in place. I decided the best place for this fan would be directly behind the GeForce. I put it in its place, resting faithfully right above my Pentium II CPU. I put bolts with nuts through the fan and into the other fan, but it refused to stay completely steady. So finally I decided to use that good ol' rule of thumb: "When all else fails, use duct tape!"
Seeing that duct tape might look a little tacky, I actually ended up using electric tape. It worked fine and held the fan completely stable. Here's a picture of the completed project:
I plugged in all the cables and started up Windows. I turned on the Honeywell fan and left the case sides off. How well did it do?
Observations
The test environment means a lot in this article, so here's some info on my system:
Pentium II 450 CPU
128 MB PC100 SDRAM
Abit BX6 Motherboard
Mid-Tower ATX case w/ dual 80mm blowholes on top
Sound Blaster Live! Value
Nvidia GeForce 256 DDR reference board (3.68 drivers, VSYNC disabled, all options set in favor of visual quality)
250 watt power supply (no problems at all with these fans!)
Room temperature: 71ºF
Overclocking Results:
| | Core (MHz) | Memory (MHz) | | Default Speed | 120 | 301 | Original
Cooler | 130 | 321 | Extreme
Cooling | 147 | 349 | Percent
Increase | 22.5% | 15.9% |
This table is a bit hard to follow, so I'll explain. "Default Speed" refers to the card's default clock speed -- no overclocking involved. "Original Cooler" is the highest stable speed I achieved with the card's normal heatsink/fan. "Extreme Cooling" is the highest stable speed I achieved with the two 120mm fans, slot cooler, and Honeywell fan. "Percent Increase" is the clock speed increase from the extreme cooling vs. default speed.
As you can see, the extra cooling helped support a high clock speed increase and the system remained stable. (Note - I know some GeForce 256 cards have been overclocked much higher, but I doubt one of the original reference boards has...)
Temperature Comparison:
| | Windows ºF | Games ºF | | Default Speed | 91 | 120 | Original
Cooler | 94 | 125 | Extreme
Cooling | 75 | 85 |
The extra cooling gets the job done! Even after an hour of playing Quake3 and Unreal Tournment at 147 core / 349 memory, the temperature is still 35ºF cooler than the default speed with the heatsink fan. That's a lot of air!
Framerate Comparison:
| | 800x600 | 1024x768 | | Default Speed | 69.9 | 53.1 | Original
Cooler | 70.5 | 57.0 | Extreme
Cooling | 71.3 | 61.8 | Percent
Increase | 2.0% | 16.4% |
For the framerate comparison, Quake3 Arena was used on "High" graphics settings. The resolution was set to 800x600 for the first test, and 1024x768 for the second test. VSYNC was disabled and the test was run until the hard drive did not read.
Using the maximum clock speeds reached above, the benchmarks show that the extreme cooling did a bit for the framerate. At 800x600, the framerate barely moved at all, but at 1024x768, it jumped a whole 16.4% from the default speed. At higher resolutions, the framerate would have probably increased even more.
Conclusion
Most people aren't going to spend nearly $100 on cooling for the GeForce 256 or any video card for that matter. And nobody wants to hear how loud this puppy gets with all the cooling. Remember, 242 CFM from the case fans and on top of that, the Honeywell fan, not only uses a lot of power, but it also is damn loud.
Oh no.. I only have about 5 hours of sleep now before I have to wake up. Well, that was fun. Thanks for reading! :)
And thanks again to The Card Cooler for supplying this kick-ass gear!
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