I finally got round to making a decision and purchased the Accelero Xtreme Plus II for my 6950.

Started fitting it tonight. I've found it rather fiddly, peeling off the adhesive stickers to attach to the spacers, mixing up the paste and positioning the RAM heatsinks, but I'm getting there.

I've ended up rotating the top row of RAM heatsinks as I didn't want them right up against the mounting plate (I didn't want to find the heatpipes clashed with them once I got to the last step!). I also didn't like how they overhung the components above the chips either, which might not have mattered but I wanted to play it safe. I only had my crappy phone to take pictures with, but you can just about see even with the chips rotated there's not much gap between them and the mounting plate. The second picture shows how part of the chips are not covered by the heatsink, but I think they'll be OK.





So, just got to leave the paste to cure overnight (the instructions say five hours) and then I can finish it off. Sure glad my motherboard's got an IGP now!

I'm glad to report I managed to fit the AXPII without wrecking my card. I was very nervous when I turned on the PC after re-installing the card, but thankfully nothing went bang

I would have liked there to have been a cover over the pre-pasted area on the main heatsink to avoid the risk of dust, fingers, etc contaminating it, particularly as you have to wait 5+ hours for the RAM heatsink paste to cure and so the main heatsink is left lying around (I couldn't see a way to put it back in the packaging without something pressing up against the paste), but I think I managed to keep it clean.

I've noticed that the clips on the PCI-E power connectors are right up against the heatsink, which is probably not a problem but I might cut off the clips just in case. It's not like the plugs are going to pull themselves out and I don't think the clips are actually clipped on to anything anyway.

Now, temperatures. Ambient temperature was 23c. Left at stock settings the fan runs at 24% at idle, for a temperature of 44c (this was with dual-screens though, so it was idling at 500/1250Mhz). I can't give exact fan speeds for the stock cooler, but they were fast and loud (my custom fan profile went to 60% at 60c, slowly increasing to 100% by 70c).

I tested with the Furmark 720 Benchmark (no AA, only Dynamic background ticked).

800/1250, max temp 56c (stock cooler 64c), max fan 27%, VRM current 88A (down from 90A with the stock cooler).

920/1375@1.174v, max temp 61c (71c), max fan 29%. VRM current 97A (103A).
DispIO 61c, MemIO 63.5c, Shader 66c

As above plus PT 10%, max temp 64c (84c), max fan 30%, VRM current 231A (obviously a glitch!).

As above plus PT 20%, max temp 67c (85c), max fan 31%, VRM current 124A (135A).
DispIO 67c. MemIO 70.5c, Shader 73c

I then set the fan to 50%, which is inaudible over my Nexus 120mm on my TRUE rev.C at 1060RPM and probably my OCZ StealthStream 400W (I'll be able to tell next week, when I replace it with an Antec CP-850) and my Samsung F4. I also switched to single-screen mode.

800/1250 (idle 250/150@0.9v):

Idle: 33c, DispIO 33.5c, MemIO 29c, Shader 31c. VRM 4A

Furmark: 2973 49FPS. Max temp 50c. VRM 86A

920/1375@1.174v (idle 250/150@1.172v):

Idle: 35c, DispIO 35.5c, MemIO 31.5c, Shader 33c. VRM 11A

Furmark at PT 20%: 3744 - 62FPS. Max temp 58c. VRM 123A
DispIO 58.5c. MemIO 60.5c, Shader 62.5c

and then back to dual-screen mode.

800/1250@1v (idle 450/1250@1v):

Idle: 38c, DispIO 38.5c, MemIO 38c, Shader 40.5c, VRM 8A

920/1375@1.174v (idle 500/1375@1.172v):

Idle: 40c, DispIO 40.5c, MemIO 40.5c, Shader 42.5c. VRM 14A

My results aren't quite as good as some I've seen
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=103 ... stcount=11 (but that seems questionable and doesn't give fan speed) or http://www.overclockers.com/forums/show ... p?t=676100 (mine are pretty close to those) but I'm not complaining!

At 50% fan speed, the AXPII is quieter (inaudible) than the stock fans were at 10%. They weren't particularly intrusive, but they were noticeable and certainly became more so at 24% (which my fan profile went to at 50c), so I'm actually quite delighted

congrats

Thanks

Sounds like it's worked out well, which is great considering how long you deliberated over this
Seb

Yeah, it was a big relief that it was not only compatible (great that they've included a 3-pin fan connector) but is also as silent as I'd hoped

Now I can move on to deliberating over my new motherboard

My only worry with an Xtreme Plus II is the weight. I once had a Thermalright HR-03 GTX installed and it literally bent the graphics card out of shape. The card survived many years like this but it always made me uneasy. What's your experience? Where's the weight centred on the card? Does it bend?

Well I've got my motherboard horizontal on my bench, so the weight isn't really an issue for me One of the reasons I'm going to build my own case is so I can keep the motherboard horizontal and avoid any worries about the weight of my graphics card.