Vid card temps

Wow! I never knew how hot these cards run. I installed a sensor on the heatsink of my 9700 and that sucker runs 20-30 degrees faren. hotter than the cpu! I've never had any trouble (except when I was letting my case get way too hot early on and the video wavered a bit), but around 140f at load seems a bit much.

I bought one of those iceberg coolers a while back, but decided that it wasn't worth the risk of removing the heatsink if I wasn't having any problems.

Does heat cause a marked performance loss even before any aberration is noticed?

Maybe I should just replace the fan... the stock one is the noisiest thing in my box. Do they make replacements that fit on the existing sinks? Havne't run across any as of yet.

Thanks,

sp/\z

 

ATI GPU's do not throtle at high temps, if they overheat you will see it or crash. They are very stable at stock speeds and warm environments so there is some tolerance built in.
The heat sink comes off pretty easily. Mine had poor contact with the heatsink as well so I bought a better one. The pin spacing is a stock size so measure it and shop around.

http://my.execpc.com/~chris431/textinstructions.htm
may help.

and

http://my.execpc.com/~chris431/textinstructions.htm

but you get the idea...

 

While the process, itself, does appear to be an easy one... I do have the tools and I can use 'em... however, I am very wary about getting a drill or a dremel close to my (at the time I got it) $400 video card. I have a couple of things I made to direct air straight from outside the box to the video card. Truth is, if I'd never installed those guages, I'd be none the wiser... doh!

 

Hehe, sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bear eats you...

I would not mess with the card unless you can replace it. Sounds like you have a good solution in hand.