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.
_________________ RMS-VOYAGER: i5 6600, Z170 Gaming Pro, GTX970, HAF932, RM1000i, 6x SY1225SL12SH, 480GB M500, WD2002FAEX, WD40EZRX RMS-INTREPID: i5 6500, Z170-HD3P, XCase RM420 4U, RM650, Samsung 830 128GB SSD, 18x WD Green/Red (60TB total), Adaptec 71605E RMS-PRINCESS: i5 3470, Z68MX-UD2H, NZXT Lexa, Corsair CX V2 430W, X25-V, 750GB 7200.10 Dell UP3214Q, 3008WFP, 2x U2312HM, Logitech Z-5500, Pioneer VSX-922
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