Can I use this fan-less Heatsink with an ATi1600

Shifty Geezer

Shifty Geezer

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A friend's offering me a free upgrade to my GPU wanting to switch some graphics cards around to get his folk's Shuttle PC running. He's offering a 1600 in place of my 9600. The only reservation I have is silent cooling. I have a Zalman fanless heatsink, a ZM80 something-or-other I believe. It sandwiches the graphics card with heatsinks either side and a heat-pipe interconnect. I bought it for a Ti4200 and switched it to the 9600. Then only air movement I have is the PSU fan - there's no case fan. Will this work for the 1600? Specifically this card
http://www.sapphiretech.com/uk/products/products_overview.php?gpid=133&grp=2

Could I underclock it to cool it down?
 
Shifty Geezer said:
A friend's offering me a free upgrade to my GPU wanting to switch some graphics cards around to get his folk's Shuttle PC running. He's offering a 1600 in place of my 9600. The only reservation I have is silent cooling. I have a Zalman fanless heatsink, a ZM80 something-or-other I believe. It sandwiches the graphics card with heatsinks either side and a heat-pipe interconnect. I bought it for a Ti4200 and switched it to the 9600. Then only air movement I have is the PSU fan - there's no case fan. Will this work for the 1600? Specifically this card
http://www.sapphiretech.com/uk/products/products_overview.php?gpid=133&grp=2

Could I underclock it to cool it down?
Click to expand...

Well I dont think the ZM80 is compatible with the x1600 series card. But there are some fanless coolers or should I rather say heat-pipe heatsinks that works with the x1600.

The one from arctic cooling should be an interesting one to use for fanless cooling. Even with PSU as the only air pusher it should still cool effectively and you could always put a small/medium sized fan (or the 'turbo' module) rotating at unhearable levels.
http://www.arctic-cooling.com/vga2.php?idx=125
 
If I have to spend money, I won't do the swap ;) I barely use the 3D card I've got, so there's no point going with a performance increase. As a freebie I don't mind - it'll help with the 3D I do from time to time, but I'm not going to go to any effort.

Reading around, info's a bit contradictory. It looks like the x1600 won't draw a huge amount more power than the Ti4200, and a small underclocking can drop power requirements dramatically. Does the Catalyst software allow for underclocking? Will that manage the RAM too? Underclocking barely registers on Google! I guess I'm a B3D heretic too, with a mantra of 'less power! I want less power!" :D
 
I installed a 1600 for a friend into a well ventilated case, and while obviously not as silent as no fan at all, it was very quiet. Even being used hard, it doesn't chuck out loads of heat and so doesn't need a fast spinning fan.
 
There are fan less GPU heat sinks out there for the X1600.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835109135
35-109-135-02.jpg
 
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