Cooling options on PNY cards.

FishyMan · 09-02-2008, 05:02 AM

I'm looking on getting a PNY card. I was wondering if adding additional cooling to the housing it already has would be difficult or necessary? I've read reviews about them being quite hot.

Thinking about these 2 depending on budget.

~~PNY VCGGTX260XPB GeForce GTX 260 896MB 448-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card

or

~~PNY XLR8 VCG98GX2XPB GeForce 9800 GX2 1GB (512MB per GPU) 512-bit (256-bit per GPU) GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card

How does it work?
Thanks.

SacredTbag · 09-03-2008, 12:43 AM

true, the high end gpu's do create quite a bit of heat, but most of the time they're going to be fine. they're designed to handle it. the only real reason to upgrade your cooling is if you have a fairly high room temp, or if you plan on doing any overclocking (or if you're experiencing graphic errors such as artifacts after extended periods of gaming).

most manufacturers follow the same basic card design (depending in the model), so most any cooler for that model card should fit fine. there are some rare exceptions, but it's usually fairly straight forward.

the only problem i see is that the card is fairly new, so there may not be many aftermarket coolers out there for it (i haven't done any research, so don't quote me).

obobskivich · 09-03-2008, 02:16 AM

the only issue i see is the GX2 being an oddball, with twin GPUs, for fitting an aftermarket block on, don't quote me on saying its impossible, I'm just saying I haven't seen it

as far as following nVidia's reference, PNY does, almost 100% of the time, with no question, which means you'll get a solid board, not some flavor of the month part (yes, I'm partial to PNY boards, although I'm taking a chance on something new with a nice Sapphire i've got in the mail (more on that later))

basically, don't worry about upgrading the cooling, until you've got a need to (i.e: the thing is overheating)

the GTX 260 will run a lot cooler than the GX2, because it can switch a lot of itself off when its idling, so it'll cool down faster, while the GX2 is basically running full bore, all the time, so thats something to consider as well (basically the GTX 260 is more efficient as a result of being a newer, more advanced design)