As the review notes it does not come with any fittings. I checked with my local hardware dealer who doesn't stock the accessory fitting kits, and says that have to be purchased from Arctic's online webshop at http://www.arctic-cooling.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=2_&mID=619 which is a slightly clunky arrangement to say the list. That said, the kits are not particularly expensive at US$5-US$6 each. For some reason Arctic list them as VGA cooler spare parts rather than accessories.

Thank you for the review, good job !

I'm seriously starting to wonder how big they'll end up making those coolers... I'm sure this one would work great in an FT02 though.

Behold the beast.
It's a shame you didn't use the provided VRM sinks, I find them to be more effective than the stock plate one usually finds on these cards (I have direct experience with a non-reference Sapphire 5850 and a TwinTurbo Pro, the stock plate looks beefier but was outperformed considerably by the four little AC pieces of metal).

On a side note, I find it strange it's so expensive in the US, here I can buy one for about 50 euros, shipping and taxes included.

That card almost looks like it's gonna break! I wonder how heavy these things will get before they've reached their limit?

I have an Accelero Twin Turbo on my Geforce 8800GT. Even at a constant 5V, it will cool the card very effectively through pretty graphics intense games while remaining inaudible over the rest of the system. I also managed to get the little heatsinks to stick with no issue (I used a heatgun on the adhesive for a few seconds immediately before sticking them on), but that new thermal adhesive probably is stronger.

And as for the cost of these things, it makes sense that it would be cheaper in Europe. I think they're made in Europe and have to be imported to America, and I'm sure that's a big part of why AC products are more expensive over here. But even with that extra cost, they're still cheaper than the competition while remaining a step above the rest!

The article quotes the price including the fitting kit as between US$70~75. The 50 euros price will not include the kit, and 50 euros is equivalent to around $70. It's the same here in the UK where my local hardware dealer wants £43, excluding the fitting kit. £43 is about $70. So in reality it is priced more or less the same everywhere, and is not actually cheaper in Europe.

The size of this cooler really is no surprise when you consider current top CPU coolers... which only have to cool up to about 150W, with a bigger, better ventilated space to work in. Coolers for VGA have been lagging far behind the actual increasing power profile of GPUs. I've wondered when cooler makers would come to realize this. Let's face it -- 622g for a CPU cooler is nothing, especially when 3 fans are included.

I agree that the weight/length is still cumbersome, and perhaps in a tower style case, could prove bad for the card in the long term. I'm all for some kind of mechanical support to prevent the sag at the back end of the card. My guess is that until this gets written into the PCIe spec (probably unlikely) implementation of such support will have to come from the aftermarket cooler makers... and DIYers like you and me.

I think it also comes down to board design. Gigabyte/Sapphire/others might use a stiffer PCB than the Powercolor used in the review.
This is just pure speculation anyway. One should test all of them under the same conditions to get a good indication... or just get one of the Asus cards with the supporting bar. Reusing the metal cooling plate found on reference boards might help too, as they screw directly on the bracket.


Actually, I'm talking about the Xtreme 5870 version, with all of the fittings and heatsinks... and don't forget it's 50€ delivered.

The difference in power draw is shocking. At first it looks like it scales with GPU temperature, but if that where the case the stock cooler's draw would be similar to the Gelid at 12volts. It's a real shame there's no way to measure the stock cooler's VRM temperature. To make up that 16 watt power difference between it and the Geild at 12v & 100C, surely it would have to be well beyond the Accelero at 5v & 147C? Does anyone know what temperature the VRM protection kicks in at?

[Edit]Oh, and there is a standard for long card support(really long cards, you'd have to extend well past the Accelero). The old Antec Dragon cases used to include support brackets for them in the front of the case, but I haven't seen them in years. You can see them as part #20 in the case's PDF. Maybe they where popular with ISA cards or something?

Wait so this works with 5850??? On the compatibility list it said 5870 not 5850.

Yes, in the early PC days full length cards were common, and cases typically had a guide slot for the end of the card. Even the smallest cases! But there are few (if any) full length PCI cards, so when ISA went away, long card support gave way to more drive bays.

Maybe instead of making longer cards, a better way would be a short card covering 6 slots, using a "tower" style heat sink, blowing the hot air out the back. 6 slots is 0.8*6*25.4 = 122mm. One slot for connectors, 5 for exhaust.

It's called Thermalright Spitfire, but it's a quite cumbersome setup. And it's only good if you don't need any of the expansion slots in your motherboard.

I was talking about the TwinTurbo Pro, read again

Maybe this question is more suited to a graphics card review, but I'm interested in how quiet it is in an idle or desktop situation. I like to leave my computer on at night when I sleep so extreme silence is pretty important. When I game, I have headphones on so system noise under load isn't too big an issue for me.

SPCR delivers another great review! Keep it up.

This article doesn't really touch on the fact that Accelero coolers are renowned for destroying the cards they are installed to, even following the correct procedure. I fell for this with an S1 Rev. 2 on my HD3870 before it was fully known, but the 4870X2 version was widely publicised to have a 50%+ destruction rate and I think the HD5970 one is almost 90%. It's sadly a general acceptance that installing a large AC cooler comes with extreme risk and really, should be a last resort if no other cooler will do. A shame, as they are by far the most powerful coolers out there, but AC simply have absolutely no idea how to attach a cooler to a graphics card. We're not always talking about shorted regulation (4870X2) or shorted DVI ports (5970) here, the S1 Rev. 2 crushed dies. That takes a lot of force in the wrong place.
It's a shame companies like Thermalright and Prolimatech refuse to acknowledge the existance of dual-GPU cards. Prolimatech have at least made an effort for SLI/Crossfire with their 4-fan system, but having seen the 3-fan Accelero coolers in person, they're just worlds apart from anything else. Given the massive TDP of the 4GB HD5970, the Accelero cooler fitted to that as stock performed incredibly well, 20 minutes of furmark and it hadn't touched 60ºC on either GPU, a Delta T of at most 36-37. Sadly I didn't get to keep the card as Sapphire don't retire products that fail Quality control, they just sell them anyway and wait for RMAs, so perhaps unsurprisingly, the only 2 cards that were in the country at the time were both DOA, and pretty seriously DOA as well, one of them almost burnt out my PCIe slot!

If someone had sold a dual-GPU card like the HD4870X2 or HD5970, at the same time the other cards were launched, with a 3-fan cooler like the Accelero Xtreme, even if it carried a £75 price premium, I'd have been all over it. I'd say I would be this gen, but the HD6990's going to be a bit poor given the high TDPs of the other GPUs, so I think it's best to be buying two solo cards this time around.

On the other hand, I'd like to see how the Accelero fits to the GTX480, and how it performs. If AC manage fitting coolers to GPUs a little better from nvidia without breaking them, this would be a serious performer on the 480, and now that they're cheap, almost a worthwhile purchase.

KFA2, aka Galaxy in the USA, have a retail GTX 480 pre-fitted with the Accelero Xtreme Plus. There is a UK review here http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=26757. It also looks like custom memory and VR heatsinks are fitted, possibly one piece units. The Temps and power consumption page of this review show that this is an outstanding cooler for high-end graphics cards.

This is quite an amazing claim. I quite disagree.

We've been reviewing GPU coolers for many years. During that time, we had one video card failure directly and clearly related to a bad aftermarket cooler which had a poor mounting scheme that ended up not making good enough contact with the core -- it burned out in a matter of maybe 20 seconds after the PC was booted. But we have absolutely never ever crushed a GPU die... or come even close to doing so. Mounting heatsinks on bare processor dies always carries some risk, and I admit to having destroyed a couple of early Athlons back in the day before heat spreaders became standard on all desktop CPUs. It is important to tighten the HS to the die gradually and evenly, with each screw getting tightened a bit at a time, all around, to prevent the tilting, non-square pressure that can chip a corner of the exposed die.

Anyway... I would certainly say that swapping a stock video card cooler with an aftermarket one is not recommended to those who have no or little mechanical aptitude. It's a job that definitely requires some care and "handiness". Your accusation of AC having bad mounting design sounds to me entirely like -- um, how to say this politely? I don't mean to insult -- an excuse about your own ham handedness.

It's an easy conclusion to draw, and it's one that I came to myself initially, before I read the reports. It's not difficult to google about all the problems with the accelero coolers, the 4870X2 and 5970 being the most notable examples as they're by far the worst.
Despite the mishap with the S1 Rev. 2 I was willing to give AC another chance with my 4870X2s before reading all the horror stories about it, which put me off for good, and the fact that things only got worse with the 5970 was only yet more affirmation.
The real issue with the S1 is the fact that it's not entirely screw-based, a large amount of physical force is required to attach the frankly flimsy plastic clip which seems to hold the entire infrastructure together, and it was immediately obvious to me that that was where the damage had been done.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1515486
One of the examples.

The Accelero 4870X2 in its first edition actually had short screws that caused lots of troubles, lots of reports of chipped cards around the globe. Hard to blame the entire breed for one defective product though. The S1 uses two clips that only require pushing, no brute force involved: once they're aligned, they slip in very easily. Disassembly requires some dexterity, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Thankfully, such support is quite easy to provide for a capable DIYer Just strap a cable tie between the heatsink and the 5.25" cage. May need to drill a hole, but who doesn't have a drill?

Parappaman: it's possible then, that something was wrong with the unit I received, as I checked the install several times as being by-the-book and yet it required an enormous amount of force to attach, I was already extremely concerned about damaging the GPU before I'd even finished.
Monkeh16: Perhaps, but truthfully, things like that should not be necessary.

How else would you suggest supporting cards in an ATX case when using entirely non-standard heatsinks?

Such modifications are a necessary part of building your own PC. Would you complain about needing to cut timber to size and pilot it yourself to assemble a stud wall?

Well that's not really a correct analogy. You don't have to build the case yourself when you buy it, it's simply a case of plugging everything together. You aren't building anything. Any cooler that bends a card substantially should come with whatever is required to solve that problem unless you are using it in a situation for which it wasn't intended (e.g. a card shorter than those it's designed for)

Ok, so they can put a long cable tie and an HSS bit in the box.. There's no reasonable way to stiffen the card itself due to the lack of a standard pattern.

And yes, you are building something. You're building a system out of a multitude of mixed parts, it's not a standard assembly and as such is not expected to be a simple task for a mindless drone.

A stock Radeon HD 5970 has 309 mm of length. A HIS Radeon HD 5870 with that Accelero had 306 mm of lenght.

Will it fit in a RV02 or FT02 without having to remove the grill of the fan like in the pictures below?

What about the VRM cooling. One of the drawbacks of most aftermarket fan coolers is that they do not cool the VRM's enough. It seems like this would be a problem with this card also. I know this is addressed with some temperature values in the review, but could this become a bigger issue after extended use? Any Thoughts on this?

A bit of googling suggests the VRM cooling for the Accelero 5870 is pretty poor, an increase of about 30-35ºC over the stock cooler, which is fairly typical of aftermarket coolers.

Excuse me for off topic but is VRM of HD 6870 as hot as VRM of HD 5870?

Well, certainly not if you put the same size heatsink on it. The HD5870 is 188W TDP whereas the HD6870 is only 151W, same as the HD5850.

I am sorry. When I said "hoter" I wanted to say "heat dissipation".

So the TDP is relative a total power consumption of a card and this mean that it do not serves as parameter. For example, a GTX 280 has a higher TDP than HD 5850 but its VRM is much easier to be cooled than VRM of AMD.

I am sorry for bad english. The Google Translator makes me stupid.