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  1. #41
    Fuzzeekee
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cantii View Post
    I salivate just THINKING about the HD7XXX series... I'm going to have my first top-end GPU ever in the HD7970 when it's released... I can taste that delicious 28nm die with 2GB of XDR2... om nom nom.

    Also, for the record: That huge, 3-slot DirectCU II cooler on the 6950 (and others) is not just for overclocking (which doesn't reduce the life of your video card), but it's also one of the quietest GPU coolers out there. If noise is a big thing, then you'll want the quietest cooler you can get (or you'll just spring for a custom block/loop), so boards like the MSI Twin Frozr III and ASUS DirectCU II are a no-brainer. Also, PowerColor has been around for a long time, but their QA is rather poor... but they're cheap, so they're relatively popular among budget gamers. Though, if I had a choice between the two cheapest manufacturers, PowerColor and Sapphire, I'd choose Sapphire (like you were going to), just because their QA is superior.

    Though, I'm an XFX Loyalist, so... (despite what others have said, I've never had any issues with their customer service.)
    Well yeah @ the ASUS one. It's like 30% lower temps...But if you're willing to pay 80$ more for a nicer air cooler....I agree with you on the rest. ALL XFX boards are nice when it's not the reference design.

  2. #42
    $80 more for a better air cooler? What prices are you looking at? At most it's $50, and that's ONLY with AMD cards... for whatever reason, they like to charge more for a better cooler. I'd gladly pay $50 extra for a vastly superior air cooler... however, I'm one of those crazy people who actually prefer reference design for the fact that it exhausts air outside the case.

    MSI's Twin Frozr II and III cooler is about on par with the DirectCU II cooler, but it's louder... but only dual slot. So go with what you feel more comfortable with, that's all.

    Also, even XFX's reference design is nice... it's nothing more than, well, the reference design.

  3. #43
    Warchief sizzlinsauce's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Marest View Post
    *cough* look at the 850 build *cough*

    The aim is to include as many different manufacturers as possible, and therein lies the task to represent nVidia and AMD equally. Right now there are 7 (5 if you don't count Llano and Fusion) builds with AMD graphics, and 5 builds with nVidia. That is equal representation.

    The 6950 1GB and the 6950 2GB are about equal in performance (or rather, they are equal) but the reason why the 2GB card is represented is because it is more common and more future proof as 1GB vRAM is starting to be a limitation even at 1080p with current titles (e.g. Battlefield 3).

    Drunken also presents a valid point.
    yep ive got 3 6950 1gb's but since it only really means i got 1 gb of vram maxed maxed for me is slow motion for me at 1920x1080 on 27" monitors

  4. #44
    Fuzzeekee
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cantii View Post
    $80 more for a better air cooler? What prices are you looking at? At most it's $50, and that's ONLY with AMD cards... for whatever reason, they like to charge more for a better cooler. I'd gladly pay $50 extra for a vastly superior air cooler... however, I'm one of those crazy people who actually prefer reference design for the fact that it exhausts air outside the case.

    MSI's Twin Frozr II and III cooler is about on par with the DirectCU II cooler, but it's louder... but only dual slot. So go with what you feel more comfortable with, that's all.

    Also, even XFX's reference design is nice... it's nothing more than, well, the reference design.
    The fact is a reference design is not better than an improved one with more fans, heatpipes, better exhaust, similar size. I can't justify an extra slot personally for 300$ vs paying 220-240$. I also do not live in the US. My case does not have hot air issues with a decent 2 slot cooler.

  5. #45
    Quote Originally Posted by Fuzzeekee View Post
    The fact is a reference design is not better than an improved one with more fans, heatpipes, better exhaust, similar size. I can't justify an extra slot personally for 300$ vs paying 220-240$. I also do not live in the US. My case does not have hot air issues with a decent 2 slot cooler.
    I never said it was better... I said that I prefer them because they exhaust air out of the case as opposed to other coolers exhausting air inside the case. I already have a stupid hot north bridge, I don't need hot air from my GPU making things hotter. I live in Florida, it gets hot as hell here, I have so much positive pressure in my case, it's retarded. The faster I can get hot air out of my case, the happier I am.

    You can't justify it, but someone else can. Personal preference, it's a wonderful thing.

  6. #46
    The Unstoppable Force DeltrusDisc's Avatar
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    If you can I'd say look into a true water cooling system if you ever have the time/money... probably would be better for you with where you live, Cantii.

    By the way, your RAM in your siggy is BADASS. 1400GHz! HOT DAMN!!! ;p
    "A flower.
    Yes. Upon your return, I will gift you a beautiful flower."

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    Quote Originally Posted by mmocd061d7bab8 View Post
    yeh but lava is just very hot water

  7. #47
    Quote Originally Posted by DeltrusDisc View Post
    If you can I'd say look into a true water cooling system if you ever have the time/money... probably would be better for you with where you live, Cantii.

    By the way, your RAM in your siggy is BADASS. 1400GHz! HOT DAMN!!! ;p
    Meh, I've never been really interested in a liquid cooling system. Yeah, it looks cool and gets great performance, but I just don't want to mess with it.

    I spent a lot of time stress testing at that speed. It's rough getting passed that 1399GHz mark, you know.

  8. #48
    Just a quibble on HDD prices - even if production is going again as early as March, I don't know how quickly prices will fall. Customers may very well be accustomed to expensive hard drives by then, and HDD manufacturers may fall in love with their new margins. We may not see $60/TB again for a very long time.

  9. #49
    Fuzzeekee
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cantii View Post
    I never said it was better... I said that I prefer them because they exhaust air out of the case as opposed to other coolers exhausting air inside the case.
    Actually the air stagnates on the right side of the single fan reference coolers. On a non-reference design, (assuming current gen GPU) much of the air will go out the back and "some" will move around, but if you're not silly and you've got a proper intake/exhaust, you won't have to worry. It will leave faster also, so you can become a happy person ...But it's pretty obvious if you can direct air flow with two fans on your GPU, it's going to be faster.

    ---------- Post added 2011-11-06 at 04:50 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by DeltrusDisc View Post
    If you can I'd say look into a true water cooling system if you ever have the time/money... probably would be better for you with where you live, Cantii.
    Yeah air cooling in florida omg. I live in a warm part of canada, not nearly as hot... I would be scared like him too. Dust, moisture, heat... He has a sabertooth which those are supposed to be more MUCH power efficient than the other boards O_O . I'd probably go down the water cooling route if I was like that. Even water cool my GPU, who cares about air coolers!!! (My friends live in florida, so they tell me about the temperatures.)

    I was in this random raiding guild, and in their vent you could hear this guy's GPU fan during firelands. So I named him the popcorn maker. "Hey are you making popcorn over there?" ...Once his vent button got stuck for 3 minutes, EVERYONE was freaking out over the noise, and the jokes never ended.

  10. #50
    Where the hell do you get your information from? "The air stagnates on the right side of the single fan reference coolers?" Your comments are mind-boggling, to say the least. Why not, for once since you've started posting here, post some sort of proof of your claims? I'm very interested in where an off-the-wall "factoid" like that comes from.

    And also, what exactly do you mean by that? That there's less airflow on the right side of the card? (i.e. the side with the PCI connector?) Or that there's no airflow inside the right side of the chamber? Since I've seen you post here, you've always failed to fully explain why you think something is acting the way you believe it to be, all the while without ever providing any evidence.

  11. #51
    You know, that's a really baffling claim to make. Air stagnates on the right? Wut? Direct air with two fans?

    The non-reference designs are anything but "directing"; they're only breathing in, and never pump that air out anywhere themselves. That's positive air pressure forcing it to leave through any point of the cooler.

    And that, son, causes the warmer air to be pumped out everywhere it can be.

  12. #52
    Fuzzeekee
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cantii View Post
    Where the hell do you get your information from? "The air stagnates on the right side of the single fan reference coolers?" Your comments are mind-boggling, to say the least. Why not, for once since you've started posting here, post some sort of proof of your claims? I'm very interested in where an off-the-wall "factoid" like that comes from.

    And also, what exactly do you mean by that? That there's less airflow on the right side of the card? (i.e. the side with the PCI connector?) Or that there's no airflow inside the right side of the chamber? Since I've seen you post here, you've always failed to fully explain why you think something is acting the way you believe it to be, all the while without ever providing any evidence.
    I post facts on everything. You probably didn't click the links on the last thread that was locked from trolls. But I'll pretend no one is trolling me again. Here's a link:

    (this is why I have not touched the 69xx series cards up until now. Almost every reference review states this and it's common knowledge. The ideal budget cooler
    would be a "shroud" + 2 fans and a back exhaust, but not tomb with a spinning fan in the middle.)
    http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...re,2878-2.html

    "That’s the good news. The bad news is a fan in the center means blowing half of your exhaust out the I/O bracket, where you want it to go, and the other half back into your chassis, where you decidedly don’t want it to go (especially when you’re talking about half of the heat from the hottest graphics card ever manufactured). Depending on your build, a mid-mounted fan can be a deal-breaker; it’ll almost assuredly cause complications in a dual-card configuration. But AMD doesn’t provide any guidance whatsoever regarding chassis requirements for this board."

    Note: I looked up your card, and it has a similar cooling system as mine lmao. If it's the XFX 6870 black edition?

    Here is some more info on bad reference designs: http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...re-xfx-18.html (notice the centre-fan one vs the reference design. They are in their own league of terrible, and when it comes to noise, it's very scary and funny.)

    Some fun videos on noise levels: http://www.hardwareheaven.com/review...emp-noise.html

    Hope that helped.

    ---------- Post added 2011-11-06 at 05:54 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Drunkenvalley View Post
    That's positive air pressure forcing it to leave through any point of the cooler.
    Andddd it immediately gets sucked back out of the case by my side fan, faster than the reference design. The air is cold also at the moment. :P

    Here is the part of my post that explains:

    Quote Originally Posted by Fuzzeekee View Post
    (assuming current gen GPU) much of the air will go out the back and "some" will move around, but if you're not silly and you've got a proper intake/exhaust, you won't have to worry. It will leave faster also, so you can become a happy person

  13. #53
    Quote Originally Posted by Fuzzeekee View Post
    snip
    You've failed to back up your "facts" in just about every thread you've posted in thus far. Just sayin'.

    You're basing everything on the reference design of the Radeon HD6990, which is the ONLY reference design with a single fan in the middle. Classy. Very classy. This is my video card, it is nothing like yours in its cooling, it is AMD reference design. This design is the same reference design as every other AMD video card that isn't the HD6990, and Nvidia's reference design is very similar, but is a vapor chamber, which is a little quieter. The style of fan is a blower fan, which is usually louder than a conventional bladed fan, but moves a lot more air while sacrificing low noise levels.

    On the subject of noise levels, yes, the reference cards can get very loud when under extreme loads. However, *my* video card's fan rarely goes over 35% speed, and is inaudible while gaming because I'm either using headphones or I just turn my speakers up - problem solved. I also fail to see in any of those articles, outside of the obvious 6990 - which is in a league of its own - anything about how bad the reference design is. If anything, the current reference design for AMD GPUs is one of the best they've had. I believe you're seriously confusing your own, personal opinion as facts.

    You state that *any* modern video card will mostly push air out the back... yeah, any modern video card with a reference design, sure. Video cards with cooling solutions like yours, as well as those of the Twin Frozr, DirectCU, etc. push air down onto the heatsink which is then blown out of the sides of the card. Sure, SOME of the air will be exhausted out of the back, but most of the air will remain inside the case. This air will be sucked in by your CPU cooler, power supply and will try to escape out of any opening it can. Even with proper airflow, the hot air will linger longer than necessary and increase heat overall, including on things like your northbridge.

    Just for lulz, what's your idea of proper intake/exhaust? The normal 1:1 ratio of intake vs exhaust fans? 'Cause I can smash that idea right now. OCN: How to decide on a case for air cooling
    Last edited by Cantii; 2011-11-07 at 02:20 AM.

  14. #54
    For the 2500 gaming build why not change the case for the HAF X or you can even add a quality mid tower because alot of people don't want a full tower and you don't need one for 2 580's. And maybe get a higher wattage PSU for comfort?

    Just some suggestions.
    Last edited by aisatsana; 2011-11-07 at 03:01 AM.

  15. #55
    Quote Originally Posted by Mortalis71 View Post
    For the 2500 gaming build why not change the case for the HAF X and get a higher wattage PSU for comfort?
    My guess is that the HAF X is somewhere in the top recommended cases, and Marest is just tired of recommending it :P hehe

    Although, have you SEEN the Elysium? Freakin' TWELVE cable management holes, all with rubber grommets. Though, the fan layout for such an expensive case does make me wonder...

  16. #56
    Fuzzeekee
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cantii View Post
    You've failed to back up your "facts" in just about every thread you've posted in thus far. Just sayin'.

    (#1 ANSWER BELOW) You're basing everything on the reference design of the Radeon HD6990, which is the ONLY reference design with a single fan in the middle. Classy. Very classy. This is my video card, it is nothing like yours in its cooling, it is AMD reference design. This design is the same reference design as every other AMD video card that isn't the HD6990, and Nvidia's reference design is very similar, but is a vapor chamber, which is a little quieter. The style of fan is a blower fan, which is usually louder than a conventional bladed fan, but moves a lot more air while sacrificing low noise levels.

    (#2 ANSWER BELOW) On the subject of noise levels, yes, the reference cards can get very loud when under extreme loads. However, *my* video card's fan rarely goes over 35% speed, and is inaudible while gaming because I'm either using headphones or I just turn my speakers up - problem solved. I also fail to see in any of those articles, outside of the obvious 6990 - which is in a league of its own - anything about how bad the reference design is. If anything, the current reference design for AMD GPUs is one of the best they've had. I believe you're seriously confusing your own, personal opinion as facts.

    (#3 ANSWER BELOW) You state that *any* modern video card will mostly push air out the back... yeah, any modern video card with a reference design, sure. Video cards with cooling solutions like yours, as well as those of the Twin Frozr, DirectCU, etc. push air down onto the heatsink which is then blown out of the sides of the card. Sure, SOME of the air will be exhausted out of the back, but most of the air will remain inside the case. This air will be sucked in by your CPU cooler, power supply and will try to escape out of any opening it can. Even with proper airflow, the hot air will linger longer than necessary and increase heat overall, including on things like your northbridge.

    Just for lulz, what's your idea of proper intake/exhaust? The normal 1:1 ratio of intake vs exhaust fans? 'Cause I can smash that idea right now. OCN: How to decide on a case for air cooling
    ANSWER #1.)
    Quote Originally Posted by Fuzzeekee View Post
    Here is some more info on bad reference designs: http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...re-xfx-18.html (notice the centre-fan one vs the reference design. They are in their own league of terrible, and when it comes to noise, it's very scary and funny.)
    First picture is the temps. The bottom 6870 is your card, reference cooler... the ones below it are reference designs also...

    ANSWER #2.) I'm not sure what that is supposed to mean to anyone.
    ANSWER #3.) As I stated before my side fans suck out all of the air from my SINGLE 6950. They can pull out air much faster than the GPU can keep up. I don't have circulation or heat problems like you do. Sorry we cannot relate on any level.

  17. #57
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Aphorism View Post
    Just a quibble on HDD prices - even if production is going again as early as March, I don't know how quickly prices will fall. Customers may very well be accustomed to expensive hard drives by then, and HDD manufacturers may fall in love with their new margins. We may not see $60/TB again for a very long time.
    That's not how economics work I'm afraid. What has changed because of the flooding is that the supply isn't enough to meet the demand (which in theory should be the same). When supply inevitably increases again, the prices will stabilize around the same price-point as before.



    Quote Originally Posted by Mortalis71 View Post
    For the 2500 gaming build why not change the case for the HAF X or you can even add a quality mid tower because alot of people don't want a full tower and you don't need one for 2 580's. And maybe get a higher wattage PSU for comfort?

    Just some suggestions.
    The HAF X is perfectly viable, as is almost any other mid tower or full tower case. As I explained in a previous reply; these are sample builds. The Elysium is there to represent a high-end water-cooling case. I'd pick a Corsair 800D or 650D myself, but at the same time I don't want to over-represent a certain manufacturer; there are already 3 Cooler Master cases (one of them being a HAF case) in the list.

    Case choice boils down to preference anyway due to looks in 9/10 cases (see what I did there?).
    Last edited by mmoc7c6c75675f; 2011-11-07 at 07:26 AM.

  18. #58
    The Unstoppable Force DeltrusDisc's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mortalis71 View Post
    For the 2500 gaming build why not change the case for the HAF X or you can even add a quality mid tower because alot of people don't want a full tower and you don't need one for 2 580's. And maybe get a higher wattage PSU for comfort?

    Just some suggestions.
    As an owner of a HAF X, I'm actually going to stand with Cantii on this one, if you have that much cash to drop, and likely could do a real water-cooling system, I would say go for the Elysium, or hell a Cosmos of some sort. Honestly, if I could go back in time, there are a number of parts for my computer I would change, one of them being the case, I'd opt for an Elysium instead.
    "A flower.
    Yes. Upon your return, I will gift you a beautiful flower."

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    Quote Originally Posted by mmocd061d7bab8 View Post
    yeh but lava is just very hot water

  19. #59
    Quote Originally Posted by Fuzzeekee View Post
    Andddd it immediately gets sucked back out of the case by my side fan, faster than the reference design.
    Out? Unless you changed it, the sidefan is always by default intake.

  20. #60
    Quote Originally Posted by Fuzzeekee View Post
    ANSWER #1.)
    First picture is the temps. The bottom 6870 is your card, reference cooler... the ones below it are reference designs also...

    ANSWER #2.) I'm not sure what that is supposed to mean to anyone.
    ANSWER #3.) As I stated before my side fans suck out all of the air from my SINGLE 6950. They can pull out air much faster than the GPU can keep up. I don't have circulation or heat problems like you do. Sorry we cannot relate on any level.
    Okay? What's your point? Reference design video cards run hotter than non-reference design? Way to state the obvious, I guess.

    What "#2" means to everyone is that you're solely basing your belief around a single, very special video card. Other reference cards are A) Not the same design and B) are LEAGUES quieter. Also, when in an actual, closed case, reference cards are much quieter than what is pictured in the video - especially during gaming and not some ridiculous FurMark explosion. Also, if you notice, in your very same link there, my specific video card is the quietest one of all the reference designs. Way to read the data you presented. What it also means to everyone is that it's not nearly as bad of a design as you make it out to be, especially with your laughable claim that ALL reference designs stagnate air on one side while you're basing that comment on a single, special-design, video card.

    Unless you have some ridiculous airflow coming in from the front and top, having that side fan as an exhaust is actually choking your parts. I'm willing to bet that it's actually drawing air from the potential pool from your video card and causing your video card's fans to work harder for the same amount of air. Good chance your video card's cooler's fans will die before the actual video card does. Not to mention, you're creating an area of dead air where it really needs the most airflow. Also, I don't have heat problems, nor do I have circulation problems, those are your own fabrication and skewing of what I've said thus far. My preference to video card design says nothing about my actual case and its airflow, which I'm also willing to bet is superior. It's all about maximizing airflow and positive pressure - which you would learn about from the last link I posted - very informative thread from a very informative forum, which is one of my many sources that corroborate my claims.

    TL;DR: You're stating the obvious like it's some fantastical thing. Get off your bombastic high horse.

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