Cyclone vs DirectCU vs Windforce Coolers

Best cooling?

  • MSI Cyclone

    Votes: 1 14.3%

  • ASUS DirectCU

    Votes: 3 42.9%

  • Gigabyte Windforce

    Votes: 3 42.9%

  • Reference Design

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    7
B

buska103

New Member
TLDR: Cyclone vs DirectCU vs Windforce. What cooler wins?

For a crossfire solution with 6850s.
Dual CrossFire (16X+16X)

GIGABYTE GV-R685D5-1GD Radeon HD 6850
$180 each

ASUS EAH6850 DC/2DIS/1GD5/V2 Radeon HD 6850
$180 each, $160 after $20 MIR

MSI R6850 Cyclone PE/OC Radeon HD 6850
$190 each

All of them have a 3 year warranty.
Don't plan on overclocking during the first 12 months of having the cards.

System Specs:
Motherboard: MSI 790FX-GD70
Processor: AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 955 Processor (4 CPUs), ~3.2GHz
Memory: Mushkin 1600mhz 4096MB RAM
Hard Drive: 2x500 GB Western Digital Caviar Black
Current Video Card: HIS Ice-Q Radeon HD 4850
Monitor: ASUS 24" 1920x1080
Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
Motherboard: MSI 790FX-GD70 AM3
Computer Case: Cooler Master HAF 932
PSU: Corsair 750HX Modular

PS: I am open to "mix and match", my motherboard has quad crossfire configuration, meaning that I will have a reasonable gap between both cards and they won't be hugging each other (motherboard manual recommends PCI Express 2.0 slots 1 and 3, reasonably spaced).
I do have a few questions about crossfire however, knowing that crossfire uses the lowest amount ram from two cards (ex: 512mb and 1gb, crossfire will be combined only 512mb), is it the same with core clock and memory speed? All the 6850s above have different core clocks, if I mix them, will the crossfire configuration be the lowest speed?
Also, how does one go along overclocking a crossfire setup? From my extremely limited knowledge of overclocking, it's hard to raise voltage with crossfire.
Oh, and is one crossfire bridge enough? The 68xx series only has one crossfire finger, allowing only for 2x crossfire. I see some people have two bridges connecting two cards...
 
All great questions and I hope they are answered as i'm wondering the same thing too. Out of those cards i'd get the Asus, they have a reputation of making cards that do well with overclocking. If you could flash them with 6870 bios in crossfire, that would add to the performance and price value a great great deal. Just don't know if anyone has flashed 6850's yet, so that's another concern before investing in them. They seem to be well reviewed cards though. The one that looks like it has the best cooling though, is the msi twinfrozr's.
 
The only answer I have for you is if your going to overclock the card the best way is to put 1 in your computer overclock it, then shut down remove the card put the other one in overclock that one, shut down and put them both in.
 
only two votes? =(




I think I'll be leaning towards the Cyclone however, heard it's a great quiet cooler, and it probably will work great in crossfire because it is so open.
Plus since it's open, it's hella easy to clean :D

But more input would be nice.
 
I never used them sadly so I cannot vote honestly. I have heard great things about the Cyclone being the most quiet of the new line. I would choose the Gigabyte/MSI myself.
 
I've used both Windforce and DirectCu. Both were quite and cool, couldn't hear them over my case fans. The Asus allows you to easily bump up the core voltage as well. Windforce is about 6-8 degrees cooler then the reference design.
 
Gigabyte if you want best overall system temps. Second quietest.
MSi if you want the heat off of your GPU quick, even if it means putting that hot air back in the case. Quietest.
ASUS is like middleground between the MSi and Gigabyte as cooling goes, but their fan isn't as pleasingly quiet as the other two. However, that doesn't mean it's noticeably loud, just louder.
 
What about the HIS 6850 on ebay for 6850? There are two, each for $140...

Let's just pretend that I trust the sellers, would the $50 difference from a sin gle card be worth the cooler and factory OC?
 
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