I pulled the heatsink fan off of my 5970 to put some MX-2 on the chips. Every time I see this thing it reminds me of how much I can't stand it. If you have a 5970 you know how loud, obnoxious and inefficient it is, almost as though it was trying to mess with your head. "That's right, I do an awful job of cooling your expensive GPUs and I'll be glad to remind you of that every second of the day with the dull roar of my seemingly-contradictory low-CFM high-decibel noise wheel!"
Anyway, I'm looking at this thing and the copper heatsink underneath all the plastic seems like a good starting point. After all, not many heatsinks are even out there for dual-GPU cards. Maybe strap one or two high CFM 120mm fans onto it. Unlike the stock fan, something that would actually push the air through the copper fins. Or draw the air away from it. Or both? All I know is that this card sits at 90C in its current state so bringing that max temp under load down would definitely be worth the time. Aside from that, the only other thing to address would be the memory chips on both sides of the board, but I don't see why you couldn't stick those little copper heatsinks on each of them.
5970 owners, any thoughts?
Anyway, I'm looking at this thing and the copper heatsink underneath all the plastic seems like a good starting point. After all, not many heatsinks are even out there for dual-GPU cards. Maybe strap one or two high CFM 120mm fans onto it. Unlike the stock fan, something that would actually push the air through the copper fins. Or draw the air away from it. Or both? All I know is that this card sits at 90C in its current state so bringing that max temp under load down would definitely be worth the time. Aside from that, the only other thing to address would be the memory chips on both sides of the board, but I don't see why you couldn't stick those little copper heatsinks on each of them.
5970 owners, any thoughts?
When I got my 5970 last month I HATED it, it's loud and hot. This month I have to say after getting a Kill-A-Watt EZ and seeing how damn efficient this card is, it's my new favorite card
The fan speed at 60-65% speed is loud at first but once it breaks in it's not too bad. I messed up putting MX-2 on it earlier last week but I re-applied it as well as adding some MX-2 on the VRMs as well (on everything that the thermal pads touch) this week and it made a bit of a difference (VRMs dropped 5C, GPUs dropped 2C). When you crack the card open you will see that most of the thermal pads are smooshed/torn, I would fill in the voids so the pad so it makes full contact with the VRMs. I have looked into the Arctic Cooling aftermarket coolers but if you buy two Scythe 120mm 1900RPM fans and put them over the card blowing cold air on it is far more economical and energy efficient. I would just stick with the stock HSF, they are more effective than any other solution. Good luck modifying the HSF, please make a post here if you happen to do that.