H60 cooling an nVidia GTX470

Hi all!

 

I wonder if I could call upon your expertise with a rather thorny problem I'm experiencing?

 

I'm a professional videographer and I'm using a home build PC to edit with Premiere Pro CS5. For those not familiar with this software, it benefits greatly from the use of CUDA on a very select group of nVidia cards. Because of this, I built my system around a Core i7 950 CPU and a GTX470 GPU with 12 Gig of DDR3 Corsair RAM and an Asus P58 mainboard. The system runs great and whilst the whole thing is quite warm, it's very stable.

 

Recently, I have had a requirement to transfer the hardware into a rackmount case so that I can take the whole box on tour without risking damaging it. The new case is a lot harder to keep cool than the old case.

 

Here is the case:

 

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/codegen-cg-4u-500e-4u-rackmount-case-with-eco-black-interior

 

The details:

 

The case has a 120mm fan in the front bay that sucks air in. It has two 80mm fans in the top that blow air out. My Corsair 650 PSU sits in the back and contains a big fan that sucks air off the CPU cooler and blows it out of the back. I have added two 60mm fans on the back of the case that also suck air off the CPU cooler and blow it out of the back of the case.

 

With the lid on the case in this configuration, the GPU idles at 55C and hits 88C sometimes under load from Premiere Pro CS5 during serious renders (I do 13 hour renders!). The CPU cores idle at around 53C and peak at around 75C under load from Premiere Pro CS5. The CPU will peak at 96C under load from Prime95. The memory and chipset run hot but I don't know how hot because there doesn's seem to be an easy way to measure using software.

 

With the lid OFF the case, everything runs a good 10C cooler. I figured this means that I have an airflow problem. I'm not physically shifting enough air through the box to dissipate heat across all the components. Furthermore, there is no way for me to add any more fans without cutting some serious holes in my box and I'm not a sheet metal worker.

 

Of all the heat sources in my case, the GPU seems to be giving off the most heat. I think it's the GPU which is significantly raising the temperature inside the box which is then not allowing all the other components to cool adequately.

 

So to my question.... could I use a Corsair H60 to cool the GTX470? My thinking is that if I use the H60 on the GPU then I would be transfering the GPU heat to the radiator and the radiator could live outside the rackmount case OR I could have a hole cut in the top of the rackmount case and blow the heat directly out of the box. If the GPU heat is transfered out of the box in this way, I think the temperature in the case will normalise. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

 

My second question is even more simple.... As I'm not a modder or a sheet metal worker or indeed the owner of any tools (or skills) required to do serious modifications, if I put a H60 onto my GPU chip, can I clip it on with a big heavy gripping clip of some sort? I don't want to get into modifying and creating metal parts to adapt the H60 to the GPU because I simply don't posess the ability.

 

I also don't want to risk damaging my GTX470 because if that goes down, my edit box goes down. If my edit box goes down, I can't edit. If I can't edit, I'm effectively out of business. I can't simply replace the GTX470 if it breaks because they're not made or sold anymore and it's not easy to find a GPU that Premiere Pro CS5 supports CUDA for, for mess than a grand.

 

Any help and / or advice would be very much appreciated. Thanks. :-)

 

 

Kind regards,

Andrew

http://www.carillonvideo.co.uk

http://www.mama-genesis.co.uk

It doesnt really workout with the h60. It seams pretty easy to do with an h70, but most are doin it with zip ties. Which is not optimal for a rig ull be moving around a lot. I tried to put my h60 on a 470 and once I had all the 470 broken down it just didn't seam practical. The block/pump on the h60/80/100 is much larger than previous h50/70.

It doesnt really workout with the h60. It seams pretty easy to do with an h70, but most are doin it with zip ties. Which is not optimal for a rig ull be moving around a lot. I tried to put my h60 on a 470 and once I had all the 470 broken down it just didn't seam practical. The block/pump on the h60/80/100 is much larger than previous h50/70.

 

Hmmm... The H70 has a smaller block that fits on the chip but the H60 doesn't? That's what you're saying?

 

I don't fancy the idea of zip ties. I think the copper base would need to be firmly against the GPU chip (and leave the black metal piece on the card because that also contacts onto the GPU RAM chips). Zip ties would move around and that may affect the heat transfer ability. I suspect if the copper base comes away from the GPU without me knowing, the 470 will burn out in minutes.

 

Do you think a clamp would work on the H70? I'd only have to worry about shorting out the back of the 470 PCB then. Can't be too hard to isolate it from a big clip?

This is best chance u have of figuring something out:

http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=1081218&mpage=1