Bespoke tailored heatsinks! Well, that's just amazing...

I have installed the Condor on a 7900GT from Club 3D which has the reference nVIDIA cooler; and adds about ~6dBA over ambient noise here at full speed. Clearly audible and can get quite annoying in the end.

The test system I'm using is an Antec Lanboy with 2x80mm fans, one in the front, one in the rear, front is 2000rpm model @ 7v , rear is 1000rpm @ 12v; they are quite silent. CPU Cooling Scythe Mine with stock fan @ full speed, this stock fan is rated by latest SPCR review as being one of the most quiet stock fans out there, and they are right:)

PSU is a globalwin 550W oldy with 2x80mm fans which can only be heard when I hold my ear next to the PSU at the rear, they don't ramp up speed under stress/load/high temp; they remain silent. Motherboard is Asus AN8-SLI premium which has a passive north bridge cooling.

anyway now for the good stuff; the Condor keeps the 7900GT cooler than the stock cooling and this is a very low airflow case (imho). Quite impressive. This is but the first test, the coming days & week I'll be delving more into different fan configs and different casing to measure the impact. Noise reading is easy with the product, 0dBA over ambient added

The "bad" stuff, Installation can be fine tined, it's not bad, but it's not plug and play either and might scare of the less experienced users out there. Overall I'm quite impressed and this after only a few hours of usage!

Have any reviews been posted? I saw a preview on Madshrimps.be, but that is about it. I may take the plunge to silence my 7900 GTX, but I'm curious to read some reviews first. I'd also like to see some details on installation too.

Wonder if it'd be possible to have the fins on the heatsink rotated 90 degrees so that they go parallel to the card. I would think this would improve cooling of the heatsink if I had a fan blowing across the card.

Hello SPCR,

There are 2 reviews forthcoming very soon ... VERY soon. As for changing fin direction, yes, we can make them that way, but we don't recommend it because forced airflow is only going to drop the temp by a few degrees C. Why so little you ask? Because these heatsinks have been designed specifically for convection cooling (large fins, wide spacing). Honestly, they work best as advertised, utilizing the rear case fan for exhaust only.

If you’d like to see the installation instructions I can send you a PDF; just email me.

Also we’re announcing our Raven XL HTPC Video Cooler today, and a release date for our Small Form Factor Aria and HTPC enclosures. I’ll send those off to MikeC shortly.

Exciting times ahead!

SG

my findings on the Condor for the world to see: http://www.madshrimps.be/gotoartik.php?articID=477

not sure if this has been asked before, but is the heatsink cross-drilled to allow airflow through it?

No, it is not designed for any kind of thru flow. The heatsink Wing assembly is perpendicular to the rear case fan and designed to operate passively in that direction.

Here is some more info:
http://www.aero-case.com/condor_data.html

JMKE (Madshrimps.be) thanks very much for your review, I have just read it and I am most impressed with the Condor.

The Aero-Case Condor looks to be one total kick arse product for "silent gamers".


Andy

Hey Andyb, thanks for the nice comment; be sure to check SPCR upcoming review of the Condor too, I'm quite sure it will be interesting:)

I'm going to throw in a VF900 Zalman into the performance comparison to see how it compares when running at 7/5V.

Would this fit okay on a 7600GT?

I understand it's a 37-Watt card so the Condor is probably overkill. But I like larger heatsinks, and hey for an extra $10 over the Raven why not?

A bit concerned over how the thing sticks up over the CPU area. Doesn't that mean you are going to be pulling warmer air into the CPU fan and blowing it down resulting in higher CPU temps? I have an older system with a Zalman 3100 "flower" heatsink, and consequently the Zalman "fan-bracket" thingy that suspends a big fan over the CPU. Have to check measurements I guess to see if this will collide with it.

for the 7600GT there's the smaller Raven, 2 heat pipes and more compact.

Vincent, since the heatsink Wing assembly sits in front of the rear case fan, almost all of the warm air is exhausted out that way. CPU temps will only go up if the rear case fan isn't running fast enough to keep air moving through the case. This is the biggest issue encountered in using passive cooling inside a box ... any box ... you have to keep air moving through it or it will become an oven. (I'll always remember my childhood amazment at my EasyBake oven, heated only by a flashlite bulb!)

With the the Raven, cooling GPU's under 60 watts can be accomplished with VERY little airflow through the case (a single rear case fan generally works fine). But, with the Condor on a X1900XTX at 120 watts, you will need input and exhaust fans ... (120mm fans work best). Remember, the whole trick here is that we are using the quieter case fans to exhaust GPU heat instead of little screaming fans on the video card.

Our big thanks to JMke of MadShrimps for a great product review.

Well, it can get pretty hot in cars in the summer, some say as high as 200F. There was a news story a few weeks ago about someone who bakes cookies on the dashboard of their car. She was quoted as saying that when her husband called her one time to ask her to do some errands, she had to tell him she was baking cookies and couldn't do it right then. She even cooks them at work and passes them around to her co-workers. She says she kind of enjoys having a fresh baked cookie smell in her car.

I read a horror story of a woman who forgot her baby in the car...

Assuming you HAVE a case fan. I don't, I'd have to add one. My current setup is just using 2 fans. A Zalman over the CPU at minimum RPM, and the fan inside the Zalman 300B PSU.

The PSU is able to exhaust the air from the case sufficiently that the heat buildup from my current 9600Pro+ZM80 (overclocked) is not a problem. Don't see why the bump up to a 7600GT would increase the heat-load inside the case hugely. What this design does do however is create some higher heat load at that specific location over the CPU. Which worries me slightly.

I'll probably just try out the Condor or Raven, and if I have to add a case fan well I'll grit my teeth and add it.

I think my next system will be based around the Zalman Reserator though, I believe I've seen the limits now of what you can do with large heatsinks, a small case, and very few fans, and still have decent mid-range performance.

These look really nice! I've a few questions about compatability:
1) It doesn't look like there'd be any problems, but would it be okay to put another card (such as a sound card or a TV tuner) underneath the wing or to use Condors on two cards in Crossfire/SLI with one wing normal and one inverted?
2) This page says the normal wing configuration "works with standard CPU heatsinks under 110mm height" while the specifications table says the heatsink is 120mm above the CPU and needs another 25mm clearance, which would make the maximum height 95mm. Is the 10mm clearance the heatsink would have with a 110mm CPU heatsink sufficient?
3) If you were going to use a video card (probably an X1900XT if that matters) with a Conder in a P180, do you think it would be best to use one with an inverted wing so you could use a large and efficient heatsink on the CPU with one low-speed fan at the CPU heatsink and another in front of the video card, or would you still recommend a normal Condor which would require a smaller and less efficient CPU heatsink? It seems to me like the latter setup would still require two fans (one on the CPU and one on the case since I assume a fan on a short heatsink can't exhaust directly/the case fan can't pull air through the heatsink), and they might need to run faster, though front-to-back airflow probably isn't ideal for the Condor.

That's kind of dark to put in this thread. Anyway, cookies! In your car! How awesome is that!?

Really good questions:

1) Yes, it's perfectly OK to have cards under the reversed wing. As for dual crossfire X1900's yes, it's possible when in a 120mm case (like your P180) AND if you are willing to live with the fans running near full speed when in 3d mode. Add up the heat ... that's about 300 watts with an Athlon CPU, or 350+ with a hot Intel. (We have a customer who just ordered this setup and has agreed to write up the results).

2) If you have a 110mm CPU heatsink we are recommending using the reversed Wing. Yes, it’ll work with the taller heatsink but, you might have to bend the Wing up a little depending upon the actual installation (every configuration is different and your mileage may vary). Go the safer route unless there are other issues (like 80mm fans, etc.)

3) Hummm … taller, reversed ... shorter, upright; both configs with 120mm fans? I’d say we’re talking only a couple of degrees difference either way. We haven’t tested to that fine a detail here at the lab. I like the idea of venting that exhaust heat directly adjacent to the Wing … but that’s my personal preference. Final call is yours, but probably more to how hot your CPU is and which heatsink you’d like to go with.

Look at this way, with these new hot video cards the whole world is having to re-think and re-design case cooling. We’re all experimenting right now.

Thanks for the inquiry!

the X1950 series will be HOTTER and consume more power than the X1900 series; so that's an extra challenge right there!

I was surprised to see MadShrimp's review 7900 GT card with no RAMsinks on it.

All other high-end GPU coolers I've seen have some cooling for the DRAM chips, either stick-on RAMsinks or heat-spreading plates. With the overclocked 7900 GTX cards they are probably necessary.

The Condor heat pipes prevent attaching RAMsinks to two of the DRAMs, and it looks to me like the Raptor also would.

Compare this to the Aerocool VM-101, which has two heat pipes centered and closely spaced so it is possible to put RAMsinks on all eight DRAM chips.

[It might be possible, and maybe even helpful, to stick two RAMsinks on the back of the board to help cool those two chips...]

With DDR2 and DDR3 ram we have not found it necessary to cool the chips. We do offer ramsinks as an option if anyone requests them, but with temps of less than 55C under load, we haven't seen a need for this as an integral part of the product.

subzero cooling on the GDDR3 had a nice result





sweet.
http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=3390&s=1

Greetings,

A quick comment on the Mad Shrimps review: he mentions that the use of the passive HS didn't seem to increase the temps on anything else. How could it? The same amount of heat is still being removed from the GPU by the AeroCase, as there is by the stock active cooler!

The various temperatures are really an indicator of the rate that the heat is being moved, and the different temps should not be confused with the amount of heat being moved. Both move the same exact amount of heat over time, and so the affect on other temps is the same.

Holy cow! That guy doesn't have much respect for the ozone layer...

I stand corrected: overclocking the DRAMs is dependent on the GPU cooling, not the DRAM cooling.

Who woulda thunk it? RAMsinks a marketing gimmick? And me having bought not just any old RAMsinks, but the most expensive, most efficient ones? Well, at least I can stick them on my MOSFETs...

Have you ever touched your ram? It's cool, in the worst case, only a little warm. There is absolutely no need in cooling. In fact, some of the heatsinks make it worse because they transfer heat from the core to the memory.... Old DDR memory in older package, the same kind that is still used in system memory did get very hot, sometimes almost burning to the touch, but GDDR2/3 stays very cool all the time.

we're not talking large numbers here, rather the effect of placing a hot heatsink in an area used for CPU cooling, it will have an effect, but not a large one as you can see.

Will the reversed Condor fit in a P180?

What is the "single slot" option for the Condor? I assumed that since the heat was being transferred to the large wing for dissipation, the piece that mounts directly to the card would only take up one slot and hence allow another card of whatever form factor be installed in the slot directly below and/or above a Condor-equipped card.

Is that not the case for standard Condors, and hence the "single slot" option?

Good morning everyone.

1) OK, yes, the reversed Condor will fit in the P180 if you are using the first PCIe slot. (Two Condors in a crossfire setup will take a bit more work!)

2) We have a new option on the order page for a Single Slot Solution, which is a Condor or Raven without the small heatsink on the heatblock. This only makes about a 1 or 2 degrees difference on a X1900XTX ... so we optioned it off if you'd like to use the PCI card slot directly next to the video card. We only recommend this option if you really need it.

3) As for the next generation of GPU's (X1950 or whatever) ... we are quickly running out of wing space inside the case. Next solution, the heatsinks need to be mounted outside the case.

hmm, didnt i mention that to you in a PM? what no props?