Arctic Cooling Accelero L2 Pro Quick Test

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thejamppa
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Arctic Cooling Accelero L2 Pro Quick Test

Post by thejamppa » Sat Feb 13, 2010 11:47 pm

Yeah, its me again. I was really bored today so I decided to play again with my Sapphire HD 4850. I yesterday fitted S1 rev. 2 on it with 2x 92mm fans. I also had Accelero L2 Pro. Now the little devil on my shoulder whispered on my eyers why not test that too, so here I went.

So what does roughly 15€'s get then, when S1 Rev 2 is around 19-22€'s, let's see.

According Arctic Cooling, the cooler can cool up to 100W of thermal loads and they have said its compatible up to HD 4850 series cards. Oh, goody ^^

Accelero L2 Pro is quite hunk of an aluminium fitted with 92mm PWM fan. It also has 3pin fan attached so you can use it either 4pin or 3pin PCB's.

Now trinkets are same with Accelero S1's. Same memory heatsinks, same VRM heatsinks, similar attachment. It gives interesting fan adapter. By attaching 4pin and 3pin fans it will deliver 7v from the molex. It does the famous 7v trick and crossing 12v and 5v lines. (picture is in pictures section)

The pre applied MX-2 thermalpaste eases things a lot when you do not need to mess with the goop yourself. MX-2 is pretty good stuff so I saw no reason to replace it. When attachment is done, there's 1-2mm gap between memory heatsinks and heatsink itself (pictuires are in pictures section). The 92mm fan covers the memories too, so they will get nicely air.

The fan and noise:

Now my Sapphire could not automaticly control the PWM fan so it was stuck in full 2000 rpm mode. The AC states PWm fan will be range from 900 to 2000 RPM's. But the good news was that I could manually adjust fan from CCC or FanSpeed.

At Full speed of 2000 RPM there were high tonalities and motor sound Pretty nasty really. When dropping 5% of fan speed in 95% fan turned a lot quieter, more than I expected but still remained too loud. At 75% fan speed I couldn't really distuinguish fan from case fans ( 2x slipstream 800 @ 12v and 1200-rpm S-flex @5v ) and CPU fan (Noctua P12 @ 9v)

Testing
I did quick tests. I ran FutureMark 06 no probolems and Then I placed torture test by using FurMark 1.8.0 Ambedient temperature was around 22 degree's C

FurMark Stability results:

FanSpeed @ 95%: Idle 33 degree's C. After running 5 mins of FurMark Stability Test it rose 56 degree's C and bounced several minute's between 55-56 degree's C 56C was highest number seen during 5 min stability test.

FanSpeed @ 65: Idle 35 Degree's C. After 5 mins of Furmark Stability test highest read out was 58 Degree's C. It stabilized nicely between 57-58 Degree's. I am pretty impressed.

Conclusion

Arctic Cooling Accelero S1 prooved you can get good cheaply. L2 Pro prooves that again correct. Its cheaper than S1 and a lot smaller. It could easily keep temperatures in control. Cooling HD 4850 is quite amazing for such cheap cooler.

Fan is decent but is WAY too loud with poor noise character @12v. Luckily Arctic Cooling has included adapter to drop fanspeed @7v if your card cannot control fan itself. Fan comes very quiet when manually adjusting fan speed from CCC or SpeedFan and best is that cooling doesn't suffer much even if you dial fan speed down.

Cooler is very capable, cheap and with card that can adjust fan automaticly or that can use software adjustment this thing is suitable for most SCPR enthusiast who want to cool quietly their cards but who cannot fit S1 in their cases.

Edit:

Pro's:
+ Performance
+ Price
+ Quiet when fan speed is dropped
+ Performance doesn't drop much even when fan is slown down
+ Fan adapter
+ 3pin and 4pin fan connectors.
+ Universal fitting to most graphics adapters old and new.

Con's
- Takes three slots
- Noisy full tilt


Other:
Fan shroud is bristle plastic and attached to heatsink with simple clamps. Its possible to take out fan and shourd and replace it with other fan pretty easily. 92 mm or 120mm fan ziptied.

Pictures

Note all images are thumbs and by clicking them you get full sized ones.

Image
L2Pro installed on Sapphire HD 4850

Image
L2Pro is pretty high, it may interfeare the 3rd expansion slot card, or it may not. Depending on card you're using, if any.

Image
Just couple of mm gap between memory heatsinks and heatsink itself.

Image
The 92mm PWM fan covers a lot. It also makes sure memories get plenty air aswell as all memories are practically under the fan blades.

Image
Memories on bakc are very well covered too.

Image
the back side show's the attachment screws. Attachment was identical to S1 - the support bars.

Image
The 7v adapter what was included with the bundle.
Last edited by thejamppa on Sun Feb 14, 2010 7:11 am, edited 3 times in total.

Klusu
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Post by Klusu » Sun Feb 14, 2010 1:59 am

Can your Sapphire automatically control any fan?
If you can control manually from CCC, the card should be able to control automatically.
It has 4pin fan (with 4pin and 3pin connectors).
The fan certainly interferes with the 3rd slot.
How L2 compares to S1?

JL5
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Post by JL5 » Sun Feb 14, 2010 2:34 am

Thank you for the review. Been wondering if the minute cooler would be an ineffective noisemonster.
Surprising to see such low temps on the 4850. Thought the 80-100 degrees celsius was the norm for those.
Also surprising to see so little change in temps when changing fan speed.
Is the fan able to run at 15 or 25% RPM? Thinking of putting it on a 4770.

thejamppa
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Post by thejamppa » Sun Feb 14, 2010 3:58 am

@ Klusu: No I don't think Sapphire can automaticly control any fan. Same was with 4-pin stock fan.

Compearing L2 pro vs S1:

S1 performs better with fan, but not by as large margin as I expected. I should conduct more tests to actually test how much better S1 does.
S1 is huge which his problem for some people. L2 is quite big but still drawf compearing to S1
S1 almost always covers the PCI-E power connector making detatching power connector pain in behind. L2 doesn't do that.
L2 has better compability since it lacks heatpipes and has a lot smaller measurements, except for the height. In HD 4850's the one ram sink has always hit the heat pipe either forcing behind fins or placing ramsink off.
L2 is certainly effective cooler than goes is smaller spaces with effective cooling. Now it depends on your card wether fan can be controlled or not. My Sapphire has been always odd about automatic controlling not working but manual working. So I use profiles.

@
JL5:

the stock single slot cooler in reference models, was really bad certainly the cause for horrible temperatures. There's little effect fan change because My P182 has quite good air circulation with low ambedient temperature, thanks to winter- Those all help. But mainly L2pro is certainly well designed heatsink.

At quick test fan was running for 25% speed when I adjusted it, its just different matter does it sping 25% from maximum or automaticly the 900 RPM's but it certainly is quiet at minimum. My test rig is my most noisiest computer and its placed in living room with fridge so its bad envornment really to do some noise tests but at minimum the fan was drowned on air woosh generated by my case fans.

4770 GPU is not middle of the board, bit like 4670 if I remember correctly. L2Pro is made so that attachment is slightly offset too, so it should work with PCB's which GPU's are not centered.

OddSilence
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Post by OddSilence » Thu Aug 19, 2010 7:59 pm

Thanks for your review,

Do you think the L2Pro would be able to cool a 4670 "passively", without its fan mounted, but getting some airflow from another fan?

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