GTX480 Inno3D Hawk cooler review

[Bikerdude]

For those of you that might be interested.

 

A mini review of the Inno3D Hawk cooler on my GTX480

 

As you can see the Hawk base-plate doesn't cover the small chips to the rear of the VRM's.

 

This is all that came with the cooler and base-plate, no instructions or heat-sink paste.

 

This must have been a oversite by Inno3D, but there wasnt enough heatsink pads, so i had use some of my own.

 

When the hawk base-plate is fully screwed up, it puts a small kink in the card, so I backed of this screw a few turns (update: I now realize that this was due to the thermal pad I used on the VRM's being too thick, so used a thinner pad and the kink is less pronounced, but still present.)

 

I was about to use some fiber washers as one of the white spaces was missing, but then it fell out of the cooler where it had gotten lodges during shipping.

 

the hawk base-plate doesn't completely cover the VRM's or the little SMD chips to the rear of the Vrm's, but the heatsink pad I had to provide myself sort of does.

 

here is the cooler and my GTX480.

 

Case shot, as you can see like other coolers of this type it used 3 slots.

 

Taking the temps of the VRMS with my laser thermometer.

 

And here is the hard data:

 

Room temp for the test was a normal 24c, I used MSI afterburner for the clock adjustments and MSI Kombuster for the stress testing.

 

GTX 480 + Stock idle

gpu - 45c

pcb - 39

vrm - ?? (no line of sight for laser thermo)

 

GTX 480 + Stock load

gpu - 92c

pcb - 64

vrm - ?? (no line of sight for laser thermo)

 

GTX 480 + Hawk idle (stock)

gpu - 35c

pcb - 29

vrm - 35

 

GTX 480 + Hawk load (stock)

gpu - 74c

pcb - 50c

vrm - 60c

 

GTX 480 + Hawk o/c (800/1600/2000)

gpu - 79c

pcb - 53c

vrm - 66-70c

Gpuv- stock

 

GTX 480 + Hawk o/c (825/1680/2100)

gpu - 80c

pcb - 53c

vrm - 66-70c

Gpuv- stock

 

Hawk o/c (850/1700/2200)

gpu - 92c

pcb - 55c

vrm - 72-76c

Gpuv- 1.138v

fan - 70%, medium wooshing, noticable but not annoying.

 

But the fan at @100% is just as bad as stock, but also vibrates the pc case!!, this is I imagine down to the center fan blades on this particular hawk being slight out of true.

 

So in conclusion, the cooler performs very well, with stock clock idle/load temps of 35c/72c. Only ever getting back to the stock load temp of 92c when it was cranked upto 850/1700/2000@1.125v. The things that let this cooler down -

 

• the poor design oversight of the base-plate, its almost there it just needs completely cover the VRMs & SMD chips. And while they are at it there is enough space under the main cooler to put some fins/slots in that basic base-plate design to improve the cooling.
  
• the baseplate out of the box did not contact the ram and VRMs sufficently, I have bend relevent parts of the base=plate down ever so slightly and even then its not as good as it should be.
  
• the poor packing of the cooler by Inno3D, there was NO padding at all between the cooler and the baseplate. They were just rattling around in the box.
  
• the lack of heatsink paste and missing thermal pads.
  
• no instructions, not even a small sheet with a diagram of the parts etc.
  

 

Will I keep the card? maybe/possibly - got 6 days to decide. It does what it says on the tin all for the sum of £20! Unlike the Arctic cooling xtreme(the heatsink have to be glued on), this cooler doesn't invalidate the warranty on your gfx card.

[nbohr1more]

Even though they are power-guzzling monsters I've been drooling over the nvidia Fermi cards.

 

1) I just know that the have less TDM driver issues...

 

2) The GP-GPU capabilities are quite strong

 

3) Tessellation (though the 6000 series made some comeback on that front)

 

4) Better Linux drivers

 

5) N64 emulators work better...

 

6) Better stereo 3D support (like having it as an option)

 

Some day... Some day...

 

(I miss my GPU replacement cycle days... ... Now I dread new heavier game engines rather than celebrate them... )

[Bikerdude]

The thing is I had a HD6970 over Xmas, but sent back via the 7dsd...

 

• Its loader/hotter than my HD5870
  
• still costs £270 plus postage.
  
• even when overclocked I was only getting 10-20% over my 5870 for the majority of games. The only time it excelled and smashed the 5870 was in the very latest games, like Metro2033 etc.
  

I found an Asus GTX480 with 1yrs warranty left on it for £175, plus the hawk for £20. Add to that, the GTX480 with a medium overclock (800/1600/2000@stock volts) for the most part matched the 6970 which was also overclocked. Now with this new cooler I can surpass the 6970's scores, and at idle the 480 runs as cool as my 5870 does. And ad to all of that, I'm better off financially by £75...!!!

 

Oh and Overclockers.co.uk are doing the same Asus Gtx480 on the cheap for £200inc plus postage, and what makes the 480 such a good buy (if you have the money) is its the same speed or faster than the GTX570, which costs more and there are reports of people killing them because the VRM's on them are piss weak and failing.

Edited March 8, 2011 by Bikerdude

[Bikerdude]

Just a minor update, this cooler is still going. After having sold it to a mate he managed to get a cable stuck in the fan blades snapping two of them off, so atm I'm looking for a way to replace then fans. One idea is to get 3x90mm fans, or 2x80+1x90mm, cable tie them together and then to the cooler itself etc.

 

But other than that the cooler has been solid, just a shame they don't sell them any more.. :-(