VGA Cooler Roundup: A Thermalright, two Zalmans, and an Arct

MikeC · **Posted:** Fri Jun 09, 2006 8:11 pm

lloydo wrote:

Sorry to be annoying, but Devon could you quickly tell me how you affixed the aluminium plate to the rear of your Aeolus 6800 GT?

The AC NVS5 comes with TIM pads that are kind of sticky. They were used.

psiu · **Posted:** Fri Jun 09, 2006 8:29 pm

andyb wrote:

I usually say, what a great review, but I am quite surprised to see a total lack of different voltages from the Arctic-Cooling unit.

Please can you re-test the AC VGA Silencer in the same system while using a peice of software to regulate the fan speed.

I think that AC got a really rough deal inthat review, and deserve to be re-tested, even if no-one is totally sure of the voltages, a % of the speed, and knowing what version of what software was used to obtain that speed would be great.

As an example, I HAD an Arctic Cooling VGA Silencer 4 Rev2 for my X800XT PE, I set various speeds using ATI-Tool, and even had it off completly for a while. It is an exceptional cooler in many respects, such as, the fact that it will run at 22% hapily and cool, and when a game is fired up it can the spin up with the temperature.

Therefore a lower noise level is attained when the graphic card is not doing a lot, but gets noisier when games are being played.

Please level the playing field.

Andy

WOW...Exactly the same cooler and video card I have--I use ATITool to regulate the fan/temp ratio--is there an equivalent for Nvidia cards?

Mine usually runs at 19% which is inaudible--at 100% it sounds like a Dustbuster.

So yeah, if it would be possible to regulate the fan speed via software that would be excellent

Oh, and good review none the less, it was good to see the comparisons and the little things like installation covered.

lloydo · **Posted:** Fri Jun 09, 2006 10:38 pm

MikeC wrote:

The AC NVS5 comes with TIM pads that are kind of sticky. They were used.

Oh. Neither my Accelero or NV5.3 came with them... thanks anyway

roadie · **Posted:** Mon Jun 12, 2006 6:00 am

It's good to see a SPCR review of these units. However, here are some of my thoughts on the V1-Ultra, which I have on my x1900xt.

First of all, the instructions for installing it really aren't terribly good, especially when you are trying to follow them humgover, like I was. I had the same problem you did in deciding what to do with the rubber square that is supposed to go around the GPU die. What the instructions don't make very clear is that this is only meant to be used on GPU's where there is no shim around the die, like the 6600gt that they use in their instructions. Apart from that, everything is very fiddly but relatively straightforward.

As regards noise and performance, the stock fan is truly awful at 12V and does not perform terribly well at anything lower. My solution is to use an 80x25mm Acoustifan on the radiator (rear side) at 5V and a 80x15mm Zalman ZM-OP1 also at 5V on the HS (front side) also at 5V. This is totally silent and provides cooling performance similar to that of the stock cooler.

I am pretty happy with my V1-Ultra, despite the fact that it is expensive and time consuming to install.

The Elusive One · **Posted:** Mon Jun 12, 2006 11:18 am

Nice review, but unfortunately you show most of the coolers when mounted in a way where you can't see how far above the top edge of the card they extend.

This is quite relevant for me since my HTPC cabinet is quite low. I'm currently using a 6800GT card with stock cooler which fits just barely. Unfortunately the stock cooler is quite loud, so i would like to replace it, but if the cooler sticks up above the top edge of the card i won't be able to close the cabinet.

Obviusly the Thermalright is out of the question, your picture clearly shows that, but what about the other 3?

MikeC · **Posted:** Mon Jun 12, 2006 12:08 pm

The Elusive One --

The VF900 protrudes about a quarter inch -- less than a cm -- higher than the card; the VF700 odesn't protrude at all (IRRC), and the AC NVS5 is just about flush, maybe protrudes above just a hair.

The Elusive One · **Posted:** Mon Jun 12, 2006 8:49 pm

Thanks MikeC!

Too bad about the VF900, i would have preferred that one. I think i will try the VF700, but without the LED.

acc15 · **Joined:** Sun Aug 24, 2003 4:20 am **Posts:** 4

Very informative review - well done!

I still would have appreciated some space devoted to the process of removing stock fans, though. I remember older video card heatsinks being a royal pain to remove ; they probably used thermal glue or somesuch material, as I worried I might actually rip the GPU off with the heatsink while trying to dismantle the thing.

Do newer cards' stock heastsinks "stick" to the GPUs like that, or is removal, nowadays, a simple matter of unscrewing a couple of bolts and wiping off the thermal paste?

MikeC · **Posted:** Sun Jun 18, 2006 8:07 am

acc15 wrote:

Very informative review - well done!

I still would have appreciated some space devoted to the process of removing stock fans, though. I remember older video card heatsinks being a royal pain to remove ; they probably used thermal glue or somesuch material, as I worried I might actually rip the GPU off with the heatsink while trying to dismantle the thing.

Do newer cards' stock heastsinks "stick" to the GPUs like that, or is removal, nowadays, a simple matter of unscrewing a couple of bolts and wiping off the thermal paste?

The safest way to remove the stock HSF is to apply some heat to soften up the TIM between GPU and HS. This is usually the point of greatest resistance and potential damage. Just applying a hot hairdryer on it for a minute would be enough to soften it up. We have not dealt with this issue at all, mostly because we use the same vidcard to do all our VGA cooler testing (for the obvious reason of consistency) and use a tester's version of Arctic Silver TIM that seems to stay softer for a longer period.

NapalmDeath · **Joined:** Mon May 12, 2003 1:08 pm **Posts:** 148

MikeC,

The last page of the review has the comment "Help support this site, buy the Zalman VF900..." and lists newegg which I mostly buy from.

The link seems to be a click through via price grabber, but I'm planning to buy the LED version. Like your review to get credit, but not clearly seeing how to do that.

ND

MikeC · **Posted:** Tue Jun 27, 2006 7:45 am

NapalmDeath wrote:

MikeC,

The last page of the review has the comment "Help support this site, buy the Zalman VF900..." and lists newegg which I mostly buy from.

The link seems to be a click through via price grabber, but I'm planning to buy the LED version. Like your review to get credit, but not clearly seeing how to do that.

ND

Just use the SPCR search engine to search for & buy your product; we get some tiny commission for it. http://silentpcreview.pricegrabber.com/

charger2000 · **Posted:** Mon Jul 03, 2006 3:05 am

the last page of the review is messed up, I've tried with both IE and Firefox but the last table is a mix of results and ads

Devonavar · **Posted:** Mon Jul 03, 2006 10:27 am

Fixed.

badkarma · **Posted:** Mon Jul 17, 2006 11:02 am

Devonavar wrote:

Lack of data for the AC NVSilencer 5

I'm surprised people are still interested in this cooler with the Accelero set to succeed it. As MikeC stated, it was reallly only tossed into the mix as a reference because we had it on hand. In retrospect, I probably should have tested it both ways â€” once affixed to the VGA header, and once controlled externally. I was actually unaware that RivaTuner could control fan speed; I only discovered this program at the very end of the testing. Neither SpeedFan nor ATITool allows the fan on our test card to be controlled.

At this point, it will be quite some time before I will be back in the lab with enough time to retest it, so things will have to stand as they are for now. Perhaps we can revisit it again for a third time (!) when we look at the Accelero.

CPU temperature with the AC NVSilencer 5

I didn't really think a 3Â°C difference from high to low was worth commenting on. I would blame measurement variance and slightly different ambient temperatures on different days of testing.

The Silencer design that moves GPU heat out of the case still interests alot of us since it should theoretically minimize heatsoak from the hot air coming off the GPU coolers. I'd be interested as to whether the silencer reduced overall temperatues within the case or not.

wjohnsaunders · **Joined:** Wed Jul 05, 2006 5:34 pm **Posts:** 4

badkarma wrote:

The Silencer design that moves GPU heat out of the case still interests alot of us since it should theoretically minimize heatsoak from the hot air coming off the GPU coolers. I'd be interested as to whether the silencer reduced overall temperatues within the case or not.

I use an AC VGA Silencer rev 3 on a 9600XT. This model has an aluminium heatsink rather than copper, but is a similar design.

I noticed around 3 degrees drop from both the motherboard "SYS", "CPU" amd "PWM" readings. My card doesn't make the GPU temp available so I can't see what happened there. I can feel 35-40 degree air coming out the VGA Silencer vent, so I know what would be exhausting inside the case with another cooler. I think the idea of dumping the hot air outside is brilliant. The VGA Silencer could have been designed better, but it's still overkill for a 9600XT and very cheap.

My system has very low airflow, so that may explain why the VGA Silencer had a beneficial effect. Both the PSU and case fan run so slowly that I can only just feel the air blowing out.

With ambient at 19, CPU is 21, Sys is 31, PWM 30 and harddisk 31. CPU was 24 and Sys was 34 before the VGA Silencer. The system is an A64 3000 with CnQ enabled and is mostly running idle. At full load the CPU will climb to 34, and PWM to 40, nothing else changes.

Howard · **Joined:** Wed Feb 08, 2006 5:33 pm **Posts:** 275

Still waiting anxiously for the Accelero review...

Howard · **Joined:** Wed Feb 08, 2006 5:33 pm **Posts:** 275

Howard wrote:

Still waiting anxiously for the Accelero review...

lutorm · **Posted:** Mon Aug 21, 2006 8:50 pm

I have a VF700-AlCu, and I was disappointed with the fan. I even returned it for an exchange, but the new one sounded the same. Especially at low voltage where there was little or no air flow noise, there was a kind of high-pitched grinding sound, clearly audible outside of my Antec P180. I ended up cutting the frame off of a Nexus 80 and using it instead. It has less airflow, but is now inaudible over the rest of the system even when going at full speed. It still cools my old Ti4200 fine, we'll se how it fares with the X1900XT I'm about to install...

Question is, did I happen to get *two* bad fans, or am I more critical of fan noise than the SPCR reviewers?? :wink:

/Patrik

jmke · **Posted:** Mon Aug 21, 2006 11:07 pm

don't install in on the X1900 card, unless you want to fry it

rpsgc · **Posted:** Tue Aug 22, 2006 3:29 am

lutorm wrote:

Especially at low voltage where there was little or no air flow noise, there was a kind of high-pitched grinding sound, clearly audible outside of my Antec P180.

Did it sound like a hard drive seeking?

lutorm · **Posted:** Wed Aug 23, 2006 7:25 am

rpsgc wrote:

lutorm wrote:

Especially at low voltage where there was little or no air flow noise, there was a kind of high-pitched grinding sound, clearly audible outside of my Antec P180.

Did it sound like a hard drive seeking?

Yeah, kind of. Except it was constant, rhythmic, and came from the fan hub... :wink:

I guess if you made a hard drive seek back and forth periodically it would come pretty close to that sound.

rpsgc · **Posted:** Wed Aug 23, 2006 8:56 am

lutorm wrote:

Yeah, kind of. Except it was constant, rhythmic, and came from the fan hub... :wink:

I guess if you made a hard drive seek back and forth periodically it would come pretty close to that sound.

Then we have the same problem. My 7000-AlCu's fan does the same :roll:

It's very annoying.I'll replace it with a Noiseblocker 92mm fan ASAP.
I guess I'll have to do another fan swap then, if I buy the VF700 for my 6600GT.

lutorm · **Posted:** Fri Aug 25, 2006 12:32 pm

jmke wrote:

don't install in on the X1900 card, unless you want to fry it

Actually, it doesn't seem so bad, lower core temps than the stock cooler automatic fan control:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cooler ... led_6.html

lutorm · **Posted:** Mon Aug 28, 2006 8:57 am

lutorm wrote:

I have a VF700-AlCu, and I was disappointed with the fan. I even returned it for an exchange, but the new one sounded the same. Especially at low voltage where there was little or no air flow noise, there was a kind of high-pitched grinding sound, clearly audible outside of my Antec P180.
/Patrik

I just got a VF900 for my X1900XT, and its fan sounds the same, too...

Howard · **Joined:** Wed Feb 08, 2006 5:33 pm **Posts:** 275

accelero

VGA Cooler Roundup: A Thermalright, two Zalmans, and an Arct

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