Video Card Thread (Mostly Gecube x1950xt)

Well, Where to start

BIOSHOCK
The problem with Bioshock is that when you try to play it without "approved" drivers based of 7.8 ati drivers. You get missing textures and corrupt data..
Thats why you have to install the 7.8 drivers THEN overwrite those with the 7.7 drivers... NVIDIA has a similar problem where you need patched drivers to play bioshock.

MATCHOFF
I believe your referring to battlefield 2, which im installing right now. I'll set up ATI Tray tools to record my Framerate, gpu temp, ect and I'll play on as close of a full map of 64 people that I can find.
I will max all settings that I can, Screen size of 1440x900 and my sound on Ultra High.. WIll post results when Im done.
I'll also run 3DMark 06 with the stock settings then @ 675mhz and 1500mhz mem (or 750) and give both results..
mind you I do not overclock my p4 630 (3.0ghz) processor or memory in my pc.

FAN PLACEMENT
Honestly fans draw so little power that it really shouldn't effect your PC. You can always make sure to by 5v fans rather than 12v fans if your worried. Worst case. You switch the Yellow cable for the Red cable. Total, with your case.. you should have 4 fans
1 120mm front fan, 1 80mm side fan, 1 70mm side fan, 1 120mm rear fan..

FRONT DRAW
I think you misunderstand how that front fan will sit in the case.
The front fan will sit INSIDE the case, just infront of the harddrives. The reason you need to take off the front of the computer case is so you can screw the fan into place.. similar to how the rear fan is placed.. its inside the case.. screwed in from the outside of the case.. There should be enough room to easly fit that fan in there.

TEC MONITOR
The Tec Cooler never TRUELY turns off. That is why the heatsink side of the card facing the closest to the rear of the case is always so hot. By placing a Thermostat inbetween 2 of the fins on that side of the heatsink I was getting temps around 160F. While in Counter Strike Source those temps went above the max my thermostat would read.. it just said "H" lol im assuming for HOT

So I believe the Tec cooler does ramp up to keep the gpu close to or below 70C

 

CPU P4 630 (3.0ghz)
2gig DDR 400 memory
AGP 648core / 702 memory
3DMark 06 score = 4499

GPU temp 72c Max / 48.38c min
AGP Environment Temp. 56c Max / 51.00 Min

Case Temp 25.00c Max / 23.00c min
CPU Temp 63.00c Max / 41.00c min

-------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Wow, lots of words!

But yeah, I'll run 3dmark06 again tomarrow, (I have to go to a wedding, but I think I can get it in some time) or maybe even tonight. The only thing is that I have my P4 3.2 oced to 3.502mhz, and I really dont feal like taking it back down. I'll run 3d06 with the standard core and mem, I think its 648, 702...

Btw, kardson, what program do you use to monitor your temps? Nvm, is it ati tray tools?

Man I would love a BF2 faceoff, the only thing is I dont think you can join a multiplayer game with the demo...

 

Sparkle?...
Well, maybe I mentioned that brand when I saw 8800's with the same fans as these GeCubes, and that I would be surprised if they could cool those enough...

And if you mean the picture you're showing there is the main picture,
that's not PCIe.

 

I have the full version of Battlefield 2 + all the expansions

I use Ati Tray Tools to monitor the stats.
Found Under Hardware --> Monitoring Graphs

 

Oh, Great! Maybe we can play some time!

But anyway, just ran 3dmark06

CPU P4 socket 478 3.2Ghz HT @3.5Ghz
3GB Kingston Value Ram DDR400 Duel Channel mode
Gecube @ 645/702

3DMark06 Score: 4422

sm 2.0 score: 1912
HDR/SM3 score: 2222
CPU score: 973 KICK ASS

Temps:

GPU Max: 59.13C
Minimum: 41.88C

Environment Max: 45C
Min: 41C

Case Max:30C
Min:28C

EDIT: Just one random question, would it make a difference if I took out 1GB of ram, and just had 2gigs? I have (2)1GB sticks and (2)512mb sticks, I would take the 512mb sticks out. The GB sticks are in duel channel mode.

 

Kardson,

Wow, just those last two links are a complete education in fan placement. I haven't gone through them yet.

MATCHUP
Those fps figures for Battlefield 2 are going to be very interesting - what do you think Waymon? Let's see what Kardson gets with ati versus your omega. You know, really, it would be great if you guys could actually coordinate your schedules to log onto the same server at the same time, on the same map. Then it's really an apples to apples test, doesn't everybody agree? What are your thoughts, Sammorris?

Do you think you two guys could get that coordinated? That could save a lot of having to adjust the data later for differences in server bandwidth, map, etc, etc. You could be on the same team at the same place, both of you on your microphones - "I'm getting 25 fps right now" "Oh, yeah, well I'm getting 35, so take this!" No friendly fire will be tolerated

CASE FANS - DOES RICH GET THE IDEA?
Kardson, quick first question: You mentioned that the cpu fan should be blowing onto the chip. Is my cpu fan blowing the wrong way?

When you talk about the 4 fans, are you not counting the fan that is fastened to the cpu? I mean, it's always a given, isn't it, that the cpu will have a cooler with fan, just like the psu will have its own psu fan(s)? Right?

I am going to assume that this is true, that we are talking about 4 more fan placements other than psu or cpu fans. And you say I can go from the 5 volt 52 amp side instead of the 12 volt side - is that true for any size fan??

I have the exact case as in the picture. Here it is again:

...

There are four wide slots on top - two of them are being used by dvd reader, and cd burner. I can move them together giving me 3.25" of height - what size fan or fans would that be. I don't care too much about noise, so if two 80s will fit, that's fine. You said you wanted the fans to blow horizontally across to the graphics card, but that space is way up at the top of the case - see the case picture - I could mount the fan at the bottom of the wide rack, but that still puts it up above the narrower rack that holds 6 devices. Is that okay? If I were to try to put the fan in the lower narrower rack, I have plenty of room to put a fan, but nowhere to create an opening in front - refer to picture on the left - I have the same square thing that doesn't pop out, holding the start and reset buttons. And the narrow rectangles above that open a window that lets me use my floppy drive.

So, looking at the picture on the left, front of the case, you see the big square thing at the bottom, then two small rectangles above that, then I can pop off the two wide ones just above that, mounting the fan or fans right there below the reader and the separate burner.

Each plastic piece is 5 7/8 x 1 3/4, two of them giving me an opening 5 7/8" wide x 3.5" high. What size fan or fans correspond to those numbers?

So that's where you want me, at the bottom of the upper rack, not at the very top of the computer case, right?

For the round side vent hole, I'll mount, inside, a suction fan blowing into the case. It will be blowing directly toward the cpu fan. But right now the cpu fan is blowing away from the motherboard, so they would fight each other.

How do I reverse direction of the cpu fan? Is it the way the fan was mounted, or do I reverse some leads and run it backward. Mo can change that for me, if it is changeable.

Then I'll glue a fan over the square vent holes to help vent the case outward. And I will increase the fan rating on the back case fan which will also vent outward.

To summarize, 1. the front fan, or fans, will pull air in at the lower location of the upper wide rack, underneath the reader and burner. 2. The upper round side vent hole will have a fan mounted inside the case, also pulling air into the case, toward the cpu. (The cpu fan should blow toward the motherboard, not away as it is now.)

Blowing out the case will be the superglued fan over the square bottom hole, and a beefed up version of the present back case exhaust fan.

Do I have this right so far?

I do have an extra pci slot available and I already bought a vantec spectrum pci slot fan card with two fans like on your links. It has a manual slider control out the back. They will be blowing upward directly onto the Gecube, as you suggested.

If I am more of less on the right track, then I will probably take the case over to Mo, who has a lot of experience building PCs, and he'll know all the types of fans, voltages, etc. I am thinking that I will need to work with 5 volts as much as possible, to leave the 12 volts for the tec. As I mentioned I have a total of 52 amps available on the 12 volt rail. This is hard drive voltage, right? My C drive will turn itself off after 10 minutes, because I run xp and my games only from D. The dvd reader, I suppose, will turn itself off after it identifies the game disk. So do I have lots of 5 volt left for fans?

It seems that way to me.
Thanks Kardson, let me know if I missed something major.

Rich

 

wow, you must spend a lot of time on your posts! But anyway, yeah, as I said before, I'd love to play some BF2 with kardson, I've got a mic, and fraps. No prob! Btw, my name is [~X~]IceFire

Dumb name, made it quite some time ago, but yea, if you want to do a search, include the [~X~] in the search, as I added that to my real name, so it's not just a clan tag, its a permanent piece of my name...

 

Wow,

Kardson and Waymon, you guys are running neck and neck!

Waymon 4422, Kardson 4499.

Perfect BF2 faceoff. Let the battle begin!

 

Yeah I've been spending way too much time on the posts. But I never knew this much about computers before. All because the Airborne demo said "card not supported." So I kind of went off on a techie binge over the last 10 days.

But I better get back to selling real estate before I get even broker than I am, which would be hard to do.

Rich

P.S. Ok Waymon, so did you say your online name is [~X~]IceFire or did the post change it from something else you typed? That's cool. You're right, it looks like a clan tag.

Regarding you and Kardson, yeah let's find out what happens when you and Kardson do the big matchup! I am super interested, because that's where you were getting the really low framerates, with the ati drivers. Let's see what Kardson comes up with his ati drivers, right there on the same map with you.

So that's your on-line name, right? So your real name is Waymon, right? And Kardson, is that your first name or your last? I think I have it figured out that Sammorris is Sam Morris, but I'm just guessing. I'm Rich Estes. Since I am truly a complete newbie, I have to ask, is it a violation of forum etiquette to go by real names along with the handles - or is it just a bad idea because then other posters won't know who is talking about whom? Just wondering.

 

The [~X~]IceFire is full online name, so if you do a search for [~X~]Icefire, you will find my stats in bf2, but if you do a search for IceFire, you will get someone else.

My real name is Raymond, but my last name begins with a W, so I just put that togeather with my first name and got waymon, not to sure about the 3X6 part though...

EDIT: Btw, not to sure if it is a violation to use names, I just know that you can put your email address up here because of spam bots, and you cant post real personal details to, like where you live, phone number, etc.

 

I think your still getting the placement of the front fan wrong. AND if you use a PCI slot fan it should be located below your Gecube card and suck air OUT not it.

Take a look at this picture. I have circled the spots fans should go for better visualzation.

 

double post srry...

In its place FYI
overclocking the card to 657core /702 memory gave me the 3DMark score of

3DMark Score 4531 3DMarks
SM 2.0 Score 1979 Marks
SM 3.0 Score 2449 Marks
CPU Score 894 Marks

Detailed Test Results

Graphics Tests
1 - Return to Proxycon 16.401 FPS
2 - Firefly Forest 16.577 FPS

CPU Tests
CPU1 - Red Valley 0.281 FPS
CPU2 - Red Valley 0.454 FPS

HDR Tests
1 - Canyon Flight (SM 3.0) 24.604 FPS
2 - Deep Freeze (SM 3.0) 24.371 FPS

 

I also recommend cutting at least the grills of the outward-fans out.
For me (actually my case) it was a drastic increase of airflow and cooling.

For the case on the picture, those grills seem pretty "transparent".
But I don't know if it's about the same case in practice...

I don't think you have to worry about "safety", the things are not going to cut off your fingers, probably just damage the fan if you hold it.
Don't stick anything in there then lol.

But it looks kool on the back, I look straight into the "vortexing" fan.
Only on the side I kept this "grill" which is a really open sort of mod-grill.

----------

Besides that, I'd also recommend one of the modular Zalman-PSUs with heatpipes.
It doesn't blow hard with the fan, but still it takes air out of the case and I guess the PSU is still being cooled enough.
Of course because of the heatpipe-solution.
And it's very very quiet, quality guaranteed! I have one...
Oh yeah, the sleeved cables are also great, they look kool, they're tight and round, great for air-cooled systems.
And since it uses the modular system, you can leave off the cables you don't need.

 

harvrdguy: Obviously don't take what I said about the side fan being an exhaust as gospel, it just happens to work in my case, presumably because of my fixed heatsink fanless graphics

card.
If you're worried about being able to remove fans, what you can do is buy a switchable fan controller like a Sunbeam Rheobus, and actually switch off the fan before you unplug it. I

STRONGLY DISRECOMMEND unplugging and replugging molex connectors with the PC on, you can make some dodgy contact, resulting in a large spark, and then your pc shuts down. Best avoided,

methinks.

Waymon: You're welcome to see my PC, although it's a real mess, what with the vast number of cables hanging in around in there, I'm amazed there's any airflow at all, I really should clean

it up! I'll post a picture soon.

Kardson: An intake fan at the top? Interesting, for me top fans work far better as exhaust, that seems logical due to the heat rises argument, but if you get better results, that's

interesting. I suppose it could be useful if you've got a dual fan power supply with a fan at the front, rather than underneath.
PCI exhaust fans seem a good idea, but in reality, I find they do very little, and have certainly got along fine without one.
In order to install front fans, it really depends on the case. My old superflower has the front fans inside on plastic lugs, youjust clip them on from the inside. The Antec 900 has them

inbuilt into the drive bay cages, so you thumbscrew those out and unscrew the front cover (that's tedious!) and on my main PC's case, the NZXT Lexa, you simply grab hold of the entire

front panel and pull it off to find the fan and dust filter behind.

Harvrdguy: you think Kardson scares you? since buying the NZXT Lexa in June last year, it's had the three stock NZXT Fans, then replaced with nexus fans, then one was replaced with a Noctua fan, I then removed that and put the nexus back, now I run three silverstones, about to be replaced by Scythe S-Flex fans I've bought.

As far as I can tell, the Gecube is set up for side exhaust, and even bottom exhaust better since it does exhaust heat right into the case (arguably if it didn't there'd be no problem) and blowing cold air onto the card only ensures the processor has to take all the heat from the graphics card, back to the A/C argument.

Here I am minding my own business and suddenly I'm starting fights? :S

4499 in 3dmark06, for a single core that's not bad at all. In fact, that's great! When I had an X2 4200+ (let's face it, far faster than a P4 630) I was only getting around 5500 without overclocking.

Waymon: CPU of 973? kickass indeed, even more kickass than my 2570!


Harvrdguy: I think Kardson's right, the fan should be on the heatsink blowing through the fins and out via the CPU end of the heatsink. That's how all the heatsinks i've had have worked.
You figured right about my name by the way...

 

Hey guys,

Dinc - I think you're right about baffles on fans - they restrict flow. I've been reading about it a lot this evening.

Kardson, I finally studied all your fan stuff:

http://www.tweak3d.net/tweak/airflowtweak/print.shtml . . . . and

http://www.heatsink-guide.com/casecool.htm


But some of what I have read seems to point me in a slightly different direction. Let me tell you why.

Here is the picture again from your post above. Look at where we were going to put inlet fan 2, on the side panel where the tiny round holes are now:

...

But in going through your articles, the first article shows a typical HSF on a cpu. It's the same thing that I have now:

................

The red circle indicates lack of flow, because the middle of a fan doesn't move air, like the eye of a hurricane. So the author solves that with a 2-fan HSF.

But . . . In the picture of the 2-fan HSF,

...

he shows one fan blowing in, and one fan out, with masking tape wrapped around the heat sink, but leaving the bottom inch without any tape.

Then he says: "You can also have both fans sucking air out from the heatsink and leaving a gap in the masking tape like I pictured above. All my heatsinks are taped in this manner. Doing this actually helps move air through the heatsink. This is because all the air must now be sucked from the bottom of the heatsink where there is most heat. Air cannot come in from the top part of the heatsink because it’s sealed and therefore must enter from the bottom and go through the top -- carrying with it, all the heat from the CPU."

Furthermore, he gets into the whole bit about - do you suck, or do you blow? Here's what he says,

...

He recommends sucking!! (He sucks! :=) So, the way I have it right now is correct, according to him. My cpu HSF is in suck mode - it sucks air through the heat exchanger and is trying to blow it out the side of the case. When I take the side cover off there is a blast of air coming toward me. The fan blows hard! So from reading these articles, it's working correctly.

But if that's how I'm going to leave it, then I can't have an inlet fan where we were going to put fan 2,

...
because of course it would fight the HSF. When you think about it, I really don't need a fan 2 at all, I just need to let the cpu HSF blow that hot air out of the case!

The second article you sent me to go read, tells me to how to do it. They talk about making a fan duct out of packaging material, and duct tape.

Here's the picture
................

Then they say: This setup uses a CPU cooler which exhausts air from the CPU heatsink; the air duct leads the hot air to the ventilation hole in the case, so that CPU heat is directly removed from the case.

That takes me back (as regards the cpu fan) to where I was at the very beginning.

...

They're telling me to get the cpu hot air out of the case, so I am right back to where I was before - Mo threw out the conical thing, but even if I can't get it back from him, I should follow Dinc's advice and hacksaw off that super restrictive set of little round holes that won't let the air out!

And if my PC buddy Mo can't find the conical thing, I can easily create a cylinder out of cardboard and flare the edge down so it will somewhat fit the cylinder that is screwed to the case side panel, just like in the picture, and still let me get the side cover on. So I think I have the cpu heat handled - it is going to head straight out of the case! (Although I can see one problem with that - the Gecube tec cooler puts out a lot of heat, so the air the HSF is pulling over the cpu will be warm Gecube air. Well we can probably handle that with overall better case cooling.)

So, let's get back to the rest of the case, and where you want me to put intake fan 1.

...
You want me to put intake fan 1 low in the front - see #1 on the left side of the picture. But then read from A. through D. Looking at the picture above, how can I put the fans in the lower hard-drive bay? Sure I have tons of room, but I don't have any access through the front of the case. I don't get access until I get above the front bottom panel, and up past the floppy window.

Once I'm up there, it is trivial to pop off the two plastic caps and install two inlet fans in the lower part of the wide dvd reader bay. Kardson, I know you would prefer direct flow over the Gecube, but I don't want to tear up the front of my case, and I still think it will work fine. Take a look.

This is what I get, with the idea of just ducting the cpu heat out of the case, and placing the front fans where I can easily install them without tearing up my case.

...........................
And that should give me this airflow:

.....................................

Now you're probably going to say I have a big red circle deadzone at the lower back of my case. But I have a vantec spectrum dual fan card at the bottom blowing straight up onto the Gecube card. So won't that get rid of my dead zone? In fact in the post a little way before this, you sent me the vantec link:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835888112

Here's the Vantec:
...


But then you said something about venting out the case, which the vantec doesn't do, and I remembered an earlier post with another PCI slot fan card that you linked me to, here:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835114024


Oh my god! Look at this thing! When I first saw it, I just thought it was another vantec card. Only I remembered the red flames and I thought that was kind of weird. It's a monster!

..

I went ahead and read some of the newegg reviews. The flame part is a turbine that vents out the back. And you told me, kardson, that it dropped your case temp 12 degrees F. Well that's fantastic. I'll pick it up for sure. That baby will have one part directing air up at the Gecube, while the side nearest the back pulls down and out of the case, creating its own little circle of air spinning around the tec cooler. The result of all of this should be this flow:

........................

For $17 that looks like a great fan card. (Does anybody want a slightly used Vantec fan card?) Ok kardson, what do you think of the new rig?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

(Kardson, I thought I had all this worked out, but now I'm having second thoughts. In looking for that one post of yours where you dropped the case heat by 12 degrees F, I re-read your post about turning the cpu fan around and putting an inlet fan at position 2. You were convincing.

The first of your two fan articles said suck, but the second article said that blowing down on the cpu, instead of sucking, is better if you are going to overclock it. So the two articles actually had a difference of opinion regarding the cpu, blow or suck.

I'm looking at the airflow diagram above, again, and if we did it your way, having additional air coming in from the right side looks like it would be just fine. Two in, 2 out. Or if I have 2 little fans in front, 3 in, 2 out. But I could balance the fans in terms of size to avoid turbulence.

You asked me where the fresh air to cool the cpu would come from, and if I do it the way I have planned here, it all has to come from the front. With the cpu fan ducted to exhaust out the right side, as in this post, there won't be as much heat in the case, only the tec cooler heat. And not even as much of that, because the cpu fan will actually be helping get rid of some of that Gecube heat.

That might give me a cooler tec, but will it give me a hotter cpu? Maybe. Interesting point. If I put two strong fans in front, it seems to me like we would have all the fresh air we need, but you're right, the air being pulled into the cpu heat exchanger won't be almost 100% fresh air coming in the side from inlet fan 2, as how it would be if we did it your way. This way, as in this post, there will be a lot of hot air also from the tec. I don't know if we're talking 6 of one, half dozen of another.

One thing - I can easily monitor the cpu temp with speedfan. I can also change the bios settings. I was playing with that earlier today, looking to see if my motherboard allowed controlling more than just the cpu fan - it doesn't. With the present bios setting, the cpu fan really doesn't get spinning until the cpu hits 60. I can move that down to 50, or even to 40. Do you think I should change that right now at least to 50?

Anyway, I can't believe myself. I was just going to say, "Let's try it this way, and I'll watch the cpu temperature. If cooling the cpu becomes a problem, I'll turn the cpu fan around, and add the inlet fan at location 2." Then I just thought about hacksawing off those round vent holes. Once I hacksaw that off, I can't hacksaw it back on. It's easier to turn the cpu fan around, and screw a fan where I already removed the plastic cylindrical thing from location 2, rather than hacksaw that off and ruin the looks of the side panel. So I think I'll reverse course and do it your way after all. That only leaves one thing I don't want to do - please don't try to convince me that I have to tear up the front of the case and put fans in the lower hard drive bay! Barring that, modifying this whole post with an inlet fan at 2, and turning around my cpu fan, will this work?)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Thanks everybody again for all the great tips.

 

As for the sucking/blowing argument, It seems to be dependant on which heatsink, which case, which way etc.
The way I ultimately intend my CPU to end up currently is with a huge Thermalright heatsink blowing the heatsink directly to my rear case fan. I figure that's the CPU taken care of. The side fan can deal with the graphics card et al.
At present, my Freezer 7 Pro doesn't fit the right way round due to my oversized stock chipset cooler. Consequently the heat from my CPU exhausts into the power supply, so much so that when I reboot my PC from warm and the speed controller for the CPU fan resets to full speed, the PSU fan increases its speed by several hundred rpm!

I think the blower part of that fan card would be noisy but effective, however, the horizontal fan that accompanies it concerns me, it suggests it blows in, what is effectively the opposite direction. Assuming I'm wrong about that, and it blows downwards, then as long as your bottom side fan is strong enough, that should work well.

 

wow sam, you really think 973 is good for a P4? I think it sucks... My laptop, core 2 duo 2.16ghz, 2gb ram 100GB 7200rpm ati mobility firegl v5250 got 750 on 3dmark06! The cpu did the best, 1800, which is great...

Just ordered a Atec 900 case on friday, hope ill get it by monday or tuesday. It has excellant cooling inside, I'll post some specs on the temps when I get it.

 

Only 750 3dmarks? Surely it got more than that?

As for the 973 score, I'm afraid I was joking, sorry to get your hopes up!

 

Hey Sam and Raymond, (Waymon)

You're getting a new case, after all that tidewater install. What do you need more cooling for? I thought you had it made in the shade.

You guys are battling over cpu speed! That's rich!

I'll start worrying about getting the last drop of power out of my over-hot p4 3.2 multi-threading later, once the Gecube beast has been conquered. (Hey guys, if I have 2 cpus, multithreading - I bought this in 2005 - is that the same as dual core? As you can see, I know next to nothing about cpus. The only thing I know is 64 is better than 32 so I should have gone Amd at the time, but they're all 64 now, right?)

Yeah, Sam, the guy who talked about overclocking also did add that it depended on the heatsink, whether to suck or to blow.

At the last minute I decided I didn't want to hacksaw my side panel, but do you guys think a fan will be able to pull air in through those little round holes at location 2? In other words, do I still have to hacksaw it no matter what I do? If I leave the holes as they are, would it work better mounting the fan on the panel with a rubber spacer to get an air-tight fit? I think I read about rubber spacers yesterday. If so, does anybody know where I would get a rubber spacer from?

Sam, in regard to that blitztorm card, I'm confused about your concerns. You said

When you say blower, I'm almost positive you are talking about the centrifugal fan with the flames that blows out the back of the case, right. I think so, because I guess that's the kind of fan that blowers use, from what I read yesterday. So I guess it goes by: centrifugal fan, or turbine, or blower, all meaning the same thing. Am I right?

I had the same identical thought - probably effective, but probably lots of noise. Right now I don't care too much about noise, because of the Medusa 5.1 headphones.

I didn't quite understand the part where you said,

You lost me there.

We're talking about the standard radial fan, farthest from the back of the case, right? My understanding is that it sits on a swivel, and it blows, (not sucks) anywhere you point it. I might be wrong, but I would imagine that the swivel could be moved almost 180 degrees. I would have it pointed up toward the card, but I don't know at what angle. I think the newegg reviews actually described it working that way. So, do you still see some kind of a problem?

Thanks guys,
Rich

Wait, right after I posted this, I think I understand, Sam, what you were saying. It blows in the opposite direction as the blower. Yes, I think it does. The blower pulls air - I believe from the sleeve - and blows it out the back of the case. The radial fan just pushes air up, I guess air from the very bottom of the case. I don't know exactly what kind of turbulence or laminar flow that arrangement would make - I thought it would be kind of a circular flow of air. Maybe your concerns are valid, maybe it fights itself if you don't angle the swivelled one correctly. Now we're really getting technical. By the way, for heat dissipation, isn't turbulence better? Or is smooth laminar flow always better? What I read yesterday seemed to say you don't want turbulence, but I actually studied fluid flow in engineering school, and I thought there were times when you did want turbulence. Turbulence creates drag on an airplane wing, so you want it when you're landing. Is that good for heat dissipation? Maybe not.