Which "orb" to choose?

[Salmoneus]

I have a Leadtek Winfast Titanium 200 card, that shipped with a large heatsink and NO FAN! It works alright but damn that beast is hot! It overclocks stable to 200/450, but it doesn't feel right to have a potential barbeque in my case, so I'm considering one of the Thermaltake "orb's". There are three that I know of, blue, orange and crystal. What are the differences? Best cooling? Noise? can they all be mounted on a standard vga-card?

Thanks!

/Salmoneus

[Neil01952]

Blue Orbs are notoriously unreliable, the crystal orb is smaller and cools better, and I have never heard of the orange orb

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I won't bore you with my system specs..

[KilrB]

I've heard good things about the crystal orb as well.

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KilrB's PC

[Treg29]

crystal orb is the best for Chipset/Videocard cooling, and what you want.

Blorb is pretty good too. I had one on my GTS and put 3 more on friends GF2's and all were fine and still running after a year!

I too have never heard of orange... the ram cooler looks kinda orange. Looks nothing like a chipset cooler tho.

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Tryin is the First Step Towards Failure.
~ Homer Jay Simpson

[danny889]

http://www.pcca.com.au/vidcard.html

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Tbird 1400 @ 1518
Abit KT7-A
Leadtek GF2 Pro 230/460
512 Meg PC-133 Cas 3 @137
Seagate Barratcuda IV ATA 100 40Gb
16X Pioneer Slot DVD
8X4 Panasonic CD-R

[Salmoneus]

Ok, next question: do they fit on my card?
My hestsink is mounted with two "snap-in" pins, and there are four other (unused) holes on the card around the chip.

[Todd a]

Should fit fine. The use the same boards for the Ti 200 and 500 most of the time and they need to be able to mount better cooling for the Ti 500. The orbs normally ship with both the clips and frag tape. If the clips match up then use them and add some thermal grease on the core. Do not use the frage tape if the clips will work. You might also add some ram sinks. I went the cheap route and cut up an old heatsink from a pentium. I then spread a little thermal grease on the memory chips and put two tiny dots of Super Glue in the corners (applied with a pin dipped in the glue). I pressed the heatsinks on and they set up in seconds. They work pretty good at taking the heat off. I did this on a Voodoo3 2000 and a GeForce2 GTS.

You could also just slap a small fan on the heatsink if you got one laying around. Check to make sure they put some thermal grease on the chip first. Even a small 50mm fan that generates on 3-5CFM will work wonders.

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AthlonXP 1600+ @1.5Ghz
FOP32-1 Mod w/80mm (30db)
Epox 8KHA+ KT266A
256MB Crucial DDR266
GeForce2 GTS (210/410)
Sound Blaster Audigy
Antec SX-630 Case (mod'd)
TTGI TT-350-SS 370w PS

[DuronClocker]

I have Blorbs on my Savage2000, which I happened to fry by taking it out of the board with the 5v standby still on. And I also have one on my Diamond Viper V770 TNT2 card. They both cool a lot better than the standard no-fan sinks that came with these cards. The orange orb is supposedly really quiet, but it does not cool as well as the crystal orb with its nickel-plated copper inlay. Don't know why they nickel-plated the copper b/c we all know what nickel does to heat transfer, but its still probably the best you can buy.

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MSI K7T Turbo-R w/ voltage mod (2,15v)
deal fell through...lookin for yet ANOTHER chip
256MB Corsair PC150 CL2
12x DVD, 12x CDRW
Water-cooled 118w Peltier

[TaNG]

Isn't there like a Chrome ORB or something? Or is that that same as the Crystal one?

[wetling]

The Chrome orb is a CPU cooler (not a very good one).

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[Todd a]

They do make a low profile version of the chrome orb that can be used on chipsets and video cards, but you'd need to glue or tape it on.

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AthlonXP 1600+ @1.5Ghz
FOP32-1 Mod w/80mm (30db)
Epox 8KHA+ KT266A
256MB Crucial DDR266
GeForce2 GTS (210/410)
Sound Blaster Audigy
Antec SX-630 Case (mod'd)
TTGI TT-350-SS 370w PS

[DuronClocker]

Hmmm...well neither of my video cards have the holes to put a good HSF on them, so I was stuck using the thermal tape. Now I'm assuming my GF2 Ti500 card will have these holes...will it not?

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MSI K7T Turbo-R w/ voltage mod (2,15v)
deal fell through...lookin for yet ANOTHER chip
256MB Corsair PC150 CL2
12x DVD, 12x CDRW
Water-cooled 118w Peltier