Direct Cu II

[Bizman]

Recently I got a broken Asus GTX 560 Direct Cu II video card. My own card is a Radeon HD 6970. As some of you might know, the HD 6900 series make quite a lot of noise in AH3 Beta.

After doing some research I found out that Asus has made both Nvidia and AMD based cards with the Direct Cu II cooler system. On pictures they look similar, but my concern is what's under the hood. Are they identical in all parts, can they be swapped from one brand to another? For what I read about the Direct Cu II cards is that their cooling ability would be superior to the original.

Does anyone know for sure?

[Skuzzy]

I would wager they are not compatible.  The mounting holes are not going to be the same to start with.

[Chalenge]

You are almost better off buying a new card. Replacement air-type coolers will be axial flow and will add heat internally. Water cooling is more expensive and you know the rest of it about water cooling.

Now if you design a desk to house the system then axial flow will still recycle heat, but you will have more internal area to deal with.