Thermalright SI-97 GPU Cooler Mod Guide Posted!

[werty316]

Well said Bestia(ry) well said

[zachig]

Originally Posted by Bestia(ry)

@M0b1u5:

First of all ... hi and welcome to the ARP. ^^

Second ... as for myself, there will never be any sort of modding able to impress me. And I'm talkin about real modding, not putting some fancy light on like decorating a X-mas tree.
The thing is I do RESPECT the time and effort ppl are spending on it, no matter if it works out, looks ugly or is just plain useless.
That's why I dun like it when some pop up and tell others "I'm so much better than you, I've done so much more and I can do this better even with one hand."

I totally agree with you, Bestia(ry). Strong words!!!

[Papercut]

Originally Posted by M0b1u5

This mod doesn't impress me very much however. Mostly because:

1) The HS isn't really modified much at all.
2) The heatflow is totally messed up.
3) The requirement for a very noisy fan = BLECH.

<blah blah blah>

The space occupied by a dirty great big fan in *this* mod, is now where the Graphics card is located. You don't lose a PCI slot, and the efficiency of the cooling is probably sufficient to allow substantial overclocking without having to use any kind of fan at all.

<snipped>

To get higher than a 6/10, he'd have to show silent (or quieter) operation than stock, more overclockability than stock, a method of avoiding ruining access to 2 other PCI slots, and more actual modifications.

Don't forget that the objective of the mod is to achieve low temperatures because the card is heavily overclocked and overvolted. Noise is not a huge issue (it shouldn't be, when you're a serious air overclocker), and neither is the loss of a few PCI slots (2 are still usable, as would be the case on most full ATX boards). Therefore, why bother re-designing the entire heatsink when leaving it as it is achieves the intended goals?

I would also dispute your argument that your design would provide sufficient cooling without the use of a dedicated fan. If you rely mostly on the air from the CPU cooler, that's not good since the air has already been warmed up. If you relied on case airflow, you'd need really good airflow to deal with the high heat output, so I doubt you're going to have much of a reduction in noise level

If you had bothered to have a look at the temperature graphs, you would have seen the difference in temps that the mod yields over a more conventional graphics card cooler. So I don't think Max has anything left to prove to you.

[Adrian Wong]

IMHO, no matter how ghetto a mod is, we can all learn from it.

We learn from someone's creativity and ingenuity in solving a problem with limited resources. We learn from the mistakes he/she makes while attempting the mod. And we learn if it's really worth the effort, or not.

And like science experiments, we post the results, whether it's a success or not. We do not clamp a lid on it just because it does not prove our hypothesis. No matter what the results are, we can always learn something from whatever we do.

Of course, if you can do something better than that, please do so. And write a guide on it. The community benefits from such guides. But there's no point just talking about it. Go on and JUST DO IT!

[SAMSAMHA]

yeah, I ahve seen many creative mods. To be honest, I really had no idea how people come up with these amazing mods. I really didn't know that you can mod system in such way till I really got into computer.

[PsYkHoTiK]

I was suprised when Max told me about this a while back. But man it can really go... Too bad its not an option for my hot 6800Ultra...

[Trinity]

Ya know.....


Someone in the industry should make pci-e/agp socket "extention cord to a remote socket" device to allow a crafty modder to put his/her v-card/cards somewhere else in the case, Or in a seperate case all together


Pat pending 2005... By Trin...

[Adrian Wong]

Originally Posted by Trinity

Ya know.....


Someone in the industry should make pci-e/agp socket "extention cord to a remote socket" device to allow a crafty modder to put his/her v-card/cards somewhere else in the case, Or in a seperate case all together


Pat pending 2005... By Trin...

ROTFL!! You should try that mod!!

[Max_87]

Originally Posted by M0b1u5

I love it when people mod stuff - particularly when adding funky-looking heatsink solutions. I've moded quite a few CPU heatsinks and put them on GPUs, and also RAM on graphics cards.

This mod doesn't impress me very much however. Mostly because:

1) The HS isn't really modified much at all.
2) The heatflow is totally messed up.
3) The requirement for a very noisy fan = BLECH.


Here's what I would have done with the same HSF and the same graphics card.

a) Removed the CPU cooler "foot" (where it contacts the die) and inverted it 180 degrees. Even if the heatpipes are soldered into the foot, gently warming the foot with a smallgas tourch would release the solder and allow easy removal (I've done this before).

2) Reinstall the "foot" but with the contact patch of the foot now facing INWARDS.

3) Now when then cooler is mounted it'd actually be ABOVE the card, allowing for completely passive cooling via the airflow generated by the CPU fan, and the PSU fan. (Or just natural airflow in the case if the machine is already (mostly) passively cooled.

The objective of this mod is for better cooling performance, not to impress anyone.

1) Why would I wanted to modify more since this way works just finee?
2) IMO, the heatflow is not messed up. The fan pulls the air at the bottom of the casing and pushes the hot air upwards.
3)If you are thinking to mount the SI-97 on top of the cooler, I doubt you have much space for your fan up there. Plus, the airflow now is really messed up since it is very close to the CPU cooler itself. Wow! Completely passive cooling with SI-97, using the airflow from CPU? I'd like to see you cool your heavily voltmodded and overclocked card that way

Over all, I'd give this effort a 6/10 - mostly because he has the guts to publish what isn't a very remarkable achievement.

Yeah, this mod isn't something remarkable, just attach a metal plate and it's all done. But I'm happy that it really performs (The result says it all ) and I wanted to show it to people that it actually works

To get higher than a 6/10, he'd have to show silent (or quieter) operation than stock, more overclockability than stock, a method of avoiding ruining access to 2 other PCI slots, and more actual modifications.

OMG! quieter operation than stock? I guess if you want it to be even quieter than stock you would need to run it passively. I wonder what happens to your card(heavily overvolted) if you'd actually did what you mention

More actual modications? Well, maybe you think that this mod doesn't look good but as I said, I did this mod just for better cooling performance.

If you could come out a method of avoiding running access to 2 other PCI slots and it actually performs as well as or outperforms what I did, I'd really like to see it!

[MacTweker]

Originally Posted by Max_87

OMG! quieter operation than stock? I guess if you want it to be even quieter than stock you would need to run it passively. I wonder what happens to your card(heavily overvolted) if you'd actually did what you mention

More actual modications? Well, maybe you think that this mod doesn't look good but as I said, I did this mod just for better cooling performance.

If you could come out a method of avoiding running access to 2 other PCI slots and it actually performs as well as or outperforms what I did, I'd really like to see it!

If you wanted to see it done a little better here it is…

http://www.zubalew.com/josh/loose_im...st_install.jpg

and

http://www.zubalew.com/josh/loose_images/topside.jpg

Totally passive, totally quiet, a little more compact, blocking no PCI slots and 20-30 degrees Farentheight cooler than the stock heatsink/fan. Runs fine in a computer that has a case.

You’ve been owned by a Mac user…


This Mac user thanks you for publishing the article, It was an insparation and I did learn from it. Switching the foot around was not as easy as it looked but the fit is much better. I can mount 92mm fans or 80 mm fans on top but for now I’m going for passive.

I’ll write up this mod when I get the time to do it right.