Upside Down ULtimate Card???

yursturly · May 24, 2007, 11:53 PM

Upgrading old watercooled mobile Barton 2500 setup.
Got Gigabyte GA-965p-DS3 Rev 3.3 & 2Gb Jetram DDRII 800
Got Sapphire X1950PRO 256M Ultimate card.
Wanted a quiet rig, so got this version for the Zalman heatpipe cooler on the chip.
Installed in Lian Li PC-70.
It's upside down!!!?
When placed in the PCI-E 16 card slot, the cooler is on the BOTTOM of the card.
Is this gonna work?
Seems like super dum to me. Why would a company want to mount such a cool card (pun) with the cooler on the bottom - can't see it, heat will collect on it, etc, etc.
Anybody have any experience? I suppose I could put a waterblock on it and cool it, but heck, I coulda bought the 512M version without the Zalman cooler for the same price.
Thanks in advance for your comments.

SeanUK · May 25, 2007, 12:58 AM

i thought that was normal, all my ati cards have had the cooler on the bottom. 9000, 9200, 9600xt, x800, & x1950 ultimate. btw, i have the exact same card as you but mines borked i'm sending it back this morning, hope you have more luck than me.

P.S if you get up & running ok, can you post the specs of your PSU? Sapphire reccomend 30A on 12V & i want to compare yours to mine to see if mine should handle the replacement

yursturly · May 25, 2007, 05:55 AM

Running a GPB-JGE 550W PSU (model P4ATX55F). I saw that spec, too. We'll know if it is enough this weekend. It says total combined 265W with peak surge output 665W. While cheap, it has been a solid performer for me, with plenty of drain on the older rig.

It's curious - the older CPU's were power hogs and now they've gone way down, but the video chips have gone way up! Maybe I should be watercooling the video card and air cooling the CPU...

This is my 3rd ATI video card, but always water cooled, so it didn't matter. I had a 7500 and then 9800PRO AIW. Also, the other coolers weren't heatpipe based. This seems very strange to me.

Some info I found says better heatpipe coolers have an internal fiber wick that makes them work without having to rely on gravity, but that still does not seem like an ideal situation - heated vapor is going to rise, and liquid is going to run downhill.

I don't plan to oc' the video card, but will be pushing the E6300 to around 3 ghz if possible. There will be plenty of heat, and plenty of power consumption. Prior Athlon 2500 was oc'd 50%, and I ran it for over 3 years without a hitch, until i fried my NF7-s ver 2 mobo when i installed a stick of ram very carelessly. DUMN!

Good luck on your RMA with your card.

**temeteus82** · May 25, 2007, 07:19 AM

I got that card too. After BIOS update to get it running in speed as it should run. Temps are around 47 Celsius on GPU and 40 Celsius for RAM when idle. Max temps are around 60 Celsius for GPU and 52 for RAM when FAH GPU client is running.

yursturly · May 25, 2007, 10:31 AM

Thanks very much temeteus82.

Overall, that seems on the warm side for both idle and load, to me.
When I was running my AIW 9800PRO (I admit not a lot of card) with watercooling, I ran idle temps of 36 C and loads around 40 C. OC'd about 10 %, and max I ever ran was 44 C. That was using Danger Den waterblocks and other equipment.

If I run these temps on my rig, then I will probably return for restocking and get the 512K card and watercool it.

Appreciate your post very much. Will post my temps sometime this weekend.

Matth · May 25, 2007, 10:33 AM

Other than heatpiped to the other side, ALL graphics cards seem to have the "upside down" approach when fitted in a tower configuration. Why wasn't this learned from in PCI-E, which came out long after (mini)tower was the most common layout?

**temeteus82** · May 25, 2007, 12:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yursturly

Thanks very much temeteus82.

Overall, that seems on the warm side for both idle and load, to me.
When I was running my AIW 9800PRO (I admit not a lot of card) with watercooling, I ran idle temps of 36 C and loads around 40 C. OC'd about 10 %, and max I ever ran was 44 C. That was using Danger Den waterblocks and other equipment.

If I run these temps on my rig, then I will probably return for restocking and get the 512K card and watercool it.

Appreciate your post very much. Will post my temps sometime this weekend.

Well my room temp is around +24 Celsius so go figure

Anyway the card runs just fine and I can OC GPU a bit

Dyre Straits · May 25, 2007, 12:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yursturly

Upgrading old watercooled mobile Barton 2500 setup.
Got Gigabyte GA-965p-DS3 Rev 3.3 & 2Gb Jetram DDRII 800
Got Sapphire X1950PRO 256M Ultimate card.
Wanted a quiet rig, so got this version for the Zalman heatpipe cooler on the chip.
Installed in Lian Li PC-70.
It's upside down!!!?
When placed in the PCI-E 16 card slot, the cooler is on the BOTTOM of the card.
Is this gonna work?
Seems like super dum to me. Why would a company want to mount such a cool card (pun) with the cooler on the bottom - can't see it, heat will collect on it, etc, etc.
Anybody have any experience? I suppose I could put a waterblock on it and cool it, but heck, I coulda bought the 512M version without the Zalman cooler for the same price.
Thanks in advance for your comments.

All of the video cards I've ever used have the cooler system on the 'bottom' when installed in a tower case. So, I'm kind of puzzled as to why you're puzzled.

I have the PowerColor X1950 Pro PCIe 256 and have had it for several months now. It comes with the Arturo II large cooling fan and the temps for these cards are normal to run in the 40-80C range depending on idle/load.

Right now, as I'm writing, my GPU temp (using ATT) shows it to be: 40C. I've run 3DMark 06 a couple of times and the max temp has been: 53C. While playing Oblivion on this card with Ultra High settings and fairly demanding resolutions, I've seen this card get into the mid 70s C. AND, NONE of these temps are troublesome for these cards. In fact, these cards are capable of hitting the upper 90Cs before anyone should be concerned.

So, again, I'm puzzled as to why you would think that any temps in the 40 - 50 C range is 'high'.

I'll be doing some water cooling on this card soon and will be able to determine how much lower the overall averages will be once I'm done with that.

But, the main point: Your concerns are misplaced. The cards are well capable of running at higher temps than what it seems you expect.

Cheers!

NUCLEARWINTER · May 25, 2007, 02:51 PM

if i'm not mistaken, a BTX motherboard will have the video card "upside down" (for most of us) where the cooler is on the top. at least the one i saw in the show off ur rig section was. can't remember who's rig it was though. and the reason that gpu consumption and thermal emmitance is so high is due to that it does more calculations than the cpu.(at least that's what i got from an article in Computer Shopper) am i mistaken?

yursturly · May 26, 2007, 09:47 AM

Well, everyone is absolutely correct. The card is supposed to be upside down, and works fine (that doesn't mean it is the best design, however).

Installed into mobo (GA-965P-DS3, 3.3). On boot, everything seems to work, but i noticed the fan not running. Fortunately, I had put an external thermal sensor on the cooling block, under the Zalman fan. The alarm went off, and it was 80 C. I shut her down quickly.

Put a Pabst fan on the Zalman cooler with some double sided foam tape and turned her back on. Everything works excellent, and temps stayed around 27 C (ambient temp 20 C). Played with the fan a little. The fan actually works when tested with power not on the card. It's the fan header that doesn't work. Even after CCC 7.4 installed, fan doesn't work when plugged into its slot on the card.

Otherwise, card seems to function wonderfully. When Zalman fan is plugged into external power, the card runs about 32-33 C, about 5 C higher than the mightier Pabst (but lots quieter). There is still a distinctive high pitched whine, heard above the rest of my fans in the case (6). These are mostly Silenx and Evercool quiet versions.

So, wait wait wait again. Can't decide whether to trade this one in for another of the same, or look elsewhere, or look at the 512k version. I'm leaning toward the 512k version.

Thanks to all for support and comments. The heatpipe arrangement works absolutely excellent in an inverted position.

What I don't know is if the 28amp 12v rail on my power supply has anything to do with the fact that the fan doesn't run when plugged into its slot on the card. I think not, but there is absolutely no way for me to test, as I have no other machine with a PCIE 16 slot.

Lastly, the E6300 seems to run a little warmer than my old mobile Barton 2500. I am running 43-44 C idle watercooled with it, and ran 35-36 C with the Barton. I think it is the waterblock - just doesn't seem as effectively made as my old one. I may play with some orifices, to see if temps can be brought down 4-5 degrees, but it sure is messy changing those darned things out!

Regards to all. I will check back in after I get another video card.

yursturly · Jun 3, 2007, 01:34 AM

Well, I decided on the HIS X1950PRO Turbo IceQ 256m card. It was priced about the same as the Sapphire Ultimate that I purchased with a DOA fan header. I really liked the Sapphire card, but went with the HIS because it came overclocked and had a highly rated fan (quiet) that exhausted outside the case - an advantage over the Sapphire with the Zalman cooler, which wasn't all that quiet and circulated the hot air inside the case. Of course, fan was running full bore all the time, as I had to plug into off-card power, but it had a loud, highppitched whine.

My reading said the HIS card would come at 620/1480 - but it came at different timings. I think the reviews I read were on the "dv" card (see below). The date of manufacture of my card was Feb '07.

The HIS card has done a very nice job. The fan speed is dependent on temperature. It runs about 40% at 42-44 C, and is completely silent inside my case. It is very hard to tell which card one is buying at new egg - I got a "ddn" instead of "dv" card - no vivo, but I doubt I will ever run 2 monitors simultaneously anyway. It comes set at 587/1540. At this stock setting, with room temp at 22 C, after an hour or so of operation, temp averages 44 C.

I seem to have the most luck with ATI CCC in overclocking - fewer crashes than with ATI Tool. I am currently running it at 621/1592. It runs up to 65 C under full load, returning to 44 C during normal operations - like posting in a forum.

Overall, no complaints. I recommend the cards that exhaust externally. The hottest thing in the box these days is probably the video chip, so getting the air out of the case won't hurt everything else you have running.

Here's my current setup - it's a 3 plus year old rig I have re-used with new cpu, mobo, video card. Had to get a new Danger Den water block, and was water cooling my old AIW 9800PRO. Sure is loud, compared to newer setups. I am running some Evercool and some Silenx case fans, 120mm and 80mm. I have 3 - 50mm fans on the mobo, cooling the northbridge, the ram, and the mobo under the HIS video card. Board temp runs consistently 34 C. CPU runs 32 C. Radiator is isolated in a plexiglass case inside the Lian Li PC-70 case I modded, with air entering & exhausting thru the lucite enclosure & out of the case.

Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3, Rev 3.3, F11 bios
Intel E6300 @ 3.206 mhz @ 1.35v (set on board), 7X458. EasyTune 5, shows 1.33v.
Transcend Jetram DDR2 800 @ +0.1 v., 5-6-5-15 (having trouble tightening timings)
HIS X1950PRO IceQ Turbo 256m DDN-R-V2 card @ 1.32v., 621/1592
2 - WD 10k Raptors (old) 36Mb 2m cache, GRAID 0 array
Maxtor 6Y200P0 for data
AVER Media Combo PCI-E TV Tuner card
Actually had to turn DOWN the voltages to achieve these oc's. Video card at 1.33v and ram at +.4 crashed over & again, until I reduced the voltages.

If I could figure out how to post a printscreen, to show CPU-ID and CCC, I would. Maybe I'll try this next time.

Maybe I will get the guts to apply a different bios to the video card, and see if I can get it up around 640 - always something new to try...

May 24, 2007, 11:53 PM	#1
yursturly DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 5 Rep Power: 0	Upside Down ULtimate Card??? Upgrading old watercooled mobile Barton 2500 setup. Got Gigabyte GA-965p-DS3 Rev 3.3 & 2Gb Jetram DDRII 800 Got Sapphire X1950PRO 256M Ultimate card. Wanted a quiet rig, so got this version for the Zalman heatpipe cooler on the chip. Installed in Lian Li PC-70. It's upside down!!!? When placed in the PCI-E 16 card slot, the cooler is on the BOTTOM of the card. Is this gonna work? Seems like super dum to me. Why would a company want to mount such a cool card (pun) with the cooler on the bottom - can't see it, heat will collect on it, etc, etc. Anybody have any experience? I suppose I could put a waterblock on it and cool it, but heck, I coulda bought the 512M version without the Zalman cooler for the same price. Thanks in advance for your comments.

May 25, 2007, 05:55 AM	#3
yursturly DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 5 Rep Power: 0	28A on the 12v rail Running a GPB-JGE 550W PSU (model P4ATX55F). I saw that spec, too. We'll know if it is enough this weekend. It says total combined 265W with peak surge output 665W. While cheap, it has been a solid performer for me, with plenty of drain on the older rig. It's curious - the older CPU's were power hogs and now they've gone way down, but the video chips have gone way up! Maybe I should be watercooling the video card and air cooling the CPU... This is my 3rd ATI video card, but always water cooled, so it didn't matter. I had a 7500 and then 9800PRO AIW. Also, the other coolers weren't heatpipe based. This seems very strange to me. Some info I found says better heatpipe coolers have an internal fiber wick that makes them work without having to rely on gravity, but that still does not seem like an ideal situation - heated vapor is going to rise, and liquid is going to run downhill. I don't plan to oc' the video card, but will be pushing the E6300 to around 3 ghz if possible. There will be plenty of heat, and plenty of power consumption. Prior Athlon 2500 was oc'd 50%, and I ran it for over 3 years without a hitch, until i fried my NF7-s ver 2 mobo when i installed a stick of ram very carelessly. DUMN! Good luck on your RMA with your card.

May 25, 2007, 10:31 AM	#5
yursturly DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 5 Rep Power: 0	WOW! That's a little hot! Thanks very much temeteus82. Overall, that seems on the warm side for both idle and load, to me. When I was running my AIW 9800PRO (I admit not a lot of card) with watercooling, I ran idle temps of 36 C and loads around 40 C. OC'd about 10 %, and max I ever ran was 44 C. That was using Danger Den waterblocks and other equipment. If I run these temps on my rig, then I will probably return for restocking and get the 512K card and watercool it. Appreciate your post very much. Will post my temps sometime this weekend.

May 25, 2007, 10:33 AM	#6
Matth Flash Banner Hater Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: UK Posts: 3,202 Rep Power: 57 System Specs	Other than heatpiped to the other side, ALL graphics cards seem to have the "upside down" approach when fitted in a tower configuration. Why wasn't this learned from in PCI-E, which came out long after (mini)tower was the most common layout? __________________ Mary had a little lamb, Her father shot it dead Now Mary takes her lamb to school, Between two crusts of bread

May 25, 2007, 02:51 PM	#9
NUCLEARWINTER Reap What You Sow. Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Louisville, Kentucky Posts: 1,045 Rep Power: 33 System Specs	if i'm not mistaken, a BTX motherboard will have the video card "upside down" (for most of us) where the cooler is on the top. at least the one i saw in the show off ur rig section was. can't remember who's rig it was though. and the reason that gpu consumption and thermal emmitance is so high is due to that it does more calculations than the cpu.(at least that's what i got from an article in Computer Shopper) am i mistaken? __________________ insert witty comment here!

May 25, 2007, 12:58 AM	#2
SeanUK DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Glasgow, Scotland, UK Posts: 32 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	i thought that was normal, all my ati cards have had the cooler on the bottom. 9000, 9200, 9600xt, x800, & x1950 ultimate. btw, i have the exact same card as you but mines borked i'm sending it back this morning, hope you have more luck than me. P.S if you get up & running ok, can you post the specs of your PSU? Sapphire reccomend 30A on 12V & i want to compare yours to mine to see if mine should handle the replacement

May 26, 2007, 09:47 AM	#10
yursturly DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 5 Rep Power: 0	Thanks to all & card defective Well, everyone is absolutely correct. The card is supposed to be upside down, and works fine (that doesn't mean it is the best design, however). Installed into mobo (GA-965P-DS3, 3.3). On boot, everything seems to work, but i noticed the fan not running. Fortunately, I had put an external thermal sensor on the cooling block, under the Zalman fan. The alarm went off, and it was 80 C. I shut her down quickly. Put a Pabst fan on the Zalman cooler with some double sided foam tape and turned her back on. Everything works excellent, and temps stayed around 27 C (ambient temp 20 C). Played with the fan a little. The fan actually works when tested with power not on the card. It's the fan header that doesn't work. Even after CCC 7.4 installed, fan doesn't work when plugged into its slot on the card. Otherwise, card seems to function wonderfully. When Zalman fan is plugged into external power, the card runs about 32-33 C, about 5 C higher than the mightier Pabst (but lots quieter). There is still a distinctive high pitched whine, heard above the rest of my fans in the case (6). These are mostly Silenx and Evercool quiet versions. So, wait wait wait again. Can't decide whether to trade this one in for another of the same, or look elsewhere, or look at the 512k version. I'm leaning toward the 512k version. Thanks to all for support and comments. The heatpipe arrangement works absolutely excellent in an inverted position. What I don't know is if the 28amp 12v rail on my power supply has anything to do with the fact that the fan doesn't run when plugged into its slot on the card. I think not, but there is absolutely no way for me to test, as I have no other machine with a PCIE 16 slot. Lastly, the E6300 seems to run a little warmer than my old mobile Barton 2500. I am running 43-44 C idle watercooled with it, and ran 35-36 C with the Barton. I think it is the waterblock - just doesn't seem as effectively made as my old one. I may play with some orifices, to see if temps can be brought down 4-5 degrees, but it sure is messy changing those darned things out! Regards to all. I will check back in after I get another video card.

Jun 3, 2007, 01:34 AM	#11
yursturly DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 5 Rep Power: 0	I'm Back; stat's as promised Well, I decided on the HIS X1950PRO Turbo IceQ 256m card. It was priced about the same as the Sapphire Ultimate that I purchased with a DOA fan header. I really liked the Sapphire card, but went with the HIS because it came overclocked and had a highly rated fan (quiet) that exhausted outside the case - an advantage over the Sapphire with the Zalman cooler, which wasn't all that quiet and circulated the hot air inside the case. Of course, fan was running full bore all the time, as I had to plug into off-card power, but it had a loud, highppitched whine. My reading said the HIS card would come at 620/1480 - but it came at different timings. I think the reviews I read were on the "dv" card (see below). The date of manufacture of my card was Feb '07. The HIS card has done a very nice job. The fan speed is dependent on temperature. It runs about 40% at 42-44 C, and is completely silent inside my case. It is very hard to tell which card one is buying at new egg - I got a "ddn" instead of "dv" card - no vivo, but I doubt I will ever run 2 monitors simultaneously anyway. It comes set at 587/1540. At this stock setting, with room temp at 22 C, after an hour or so of operation, temp averages 44 C. I seem to have the most luck with ATI CCC in overclocking - fewer crashes than with ATI Tool. I am currently running it at 621/1592. It runs up to 65 C under full load, returning to 44 C during normal operations - like posting in a forum. Overall, no complaints. I recommend the cards that exhaust externally. The hottest thing in the box these days is probably the video chip, so getting the air out of the case won't hurt everything else you have running. Here's my current setup - it's a 3 plus year old rig I have re-used with new cpu, mobo, video card. Had to get a new Danger Den water block, and was water cooling my old AIW 9800PRO. Sure is loud, compared to newer setups. I am running some Evercool and some Silenx case fans, 120mm and 80mm. I have 3 - 50mm fans on the mobo, cooling the northbridge, the ram, and the mobo under the HIS video card. Board temp runs consistently 34 C. CPU runs 32 C. Radiator is isolated in a plexiglass case inside the Lian Li PC-70 case I modded, with air entering & exhausting thru the lucite enclosure & out of the case. Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3, Rev 3.3, F11 bios Intel E6300 @ 3.206 mhz @ 1.35v (set on board), 7X458. EasyTune 5, shows 1.33v. Transcend Jetram DDR2 800 @ +0.1 v., 5-6-5-15 (having trouble tightening timings) HIS X1950PRO IceQ Turbo 256m DDN-R-V2 card @ 1.32v., 621/1592 2 - WD 10k Raptors (old) 36Mb 2m cache, GRAID 0 array Maxtor 6Y200P0 for data AVER Media Combo PCI-E TV Tuner card Actually had to turn DOWN the voltages to achieve these oc's. Video card at 1.33v and ram at +.4 crashed over & again, until I reduced the voltages. If I could figure out how to post a printscreen, to show CPU-ID and CCC, I would. Maybe I'll try this next time. Maybe I will get the guts to apply a different bios to the video card, and see if I can get it up around 640 - always something new to try... Last edited by yursturly; Jun 3, 2007 at 01:36 AM. Reason: error pasting jpg image