New passive VGA coolers from startup company Aero-Case

vapb400 · Post by **vapb400** » Wed Apr 26, 2006 3:05 pm

http://www.techpowerup.com/index.php?11216

Aerocase, Inc. today announced their Cool-Wings line of high-performance, fanless video card coolers, designed to meet the demands of the latest high-end cards.

These two passive video coolers, named the Raven and the Condor, embody new patented thermal engineering technology called Vectored Heatpipe Attachment (or V-Degree). "Aerocase is proud to introduce this new technology", said President and CEO, Katherine Dean. "It allows these video coolers to operate as well as the noisy fan models and to do so silently".

The Condor is the only passive video cooler currently available for high-performance video cards such as the ATI x1900 and the nVidia 7900 series. The Company's largest cooler has three heatpipes and an innovative "winged" heatsink design, providing incredible cooling power to the hottest of today's gaming cards. The Condor cools ATI's new, 120-watt, x1900xt at nearly 6â—¦ C better than the loud stock cooler.

The smaller Raven is a single-slot, double heatpipe video cooler, which easily handles the mid-range ATI and nVidia mainstream cards. Both coolers utilize a unique double heatsink arrangement, mounted 90 â—¦ above and away from the video card. The Raven is designed with mATX motherboards and HTPC home theater systems in mind. Additionally, it may be ordered in either left or right facing, which opens it up for use in dual video card, SLI and Crossfire systems.

In the world of high-performance, high-temperature computing it is not unusual to see enclosures with half-a-dozen noisy fans, or expensive water cooling systems. Challenging that paradigm, Aerocase is committed to the manufacturing of silent, high-performance, air-cooled systems.

Product availably is scheduled for May 15th, 2006 directly from the manufacturer, with a list price of $59.95 for the Condor, and $45.99 for the Raven. A reseller program also provides dealer pricing.

http://www.aero-case.com

Supposedly the company is brand new and the site was put up yesterday. The site is kinda sparse on the info, bu the product looks pretty good.

What do you guys think?

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Wed Apr 26, 2006 3:49 pm

Hello,

It does look good -- we'll have to wait to know for sure. I like the slimness of the base, and the vertical fins (when it is in a tower case) seems to make sense, too.

krille · Post by **krille** » Thu Apr 27, 2006 12:53 pm

So far so good. They claim they can even cool the hottest ATI card: X1900XTX, passively. This will be an interesting solution for high-end, but I'm still sceptical to entrusting my X1900XTX to convection alone. We'll see...

Nice cases btw, they'll probably make out fine HTPCs.

~ Kris

Filias Cupio · Post by **Filias Cupio** » Thu Apr 27, 2006 6:57 pm

The site sucks, however.
(1) Useless without Flash
(2) I get essentially no information from it. I think there's a whole lot of text that isn't rendering on my computer. E.g. under the "Products" tab, the only text I see is "Products" and "Read more" (which doesn't give me anything more to read.) (I'm on Debian 3.1, Firefox.)

mattthemuppet · Post by **mattthemuppet** » Thu Apr 27, 2006 7:16 pm

you don't get a whole lot more even if you can view the text - a little vague product description and that's pretty much it. Interesting looking heatsinks though, even if clearance with the CPU HS may be an issue in some systems. Sadly no pics of the smaller model, which I'd be more interested in.

lemons · Post by **lemons** » Thu Apr 27, 2006 7:59 pm

Filias Cupio, maybe try downloading the swf if your browser is incompatible with the site.

Code: Select all

http://www.aero-case.com/Aero-main.swf

Tephras · Post by **Tephras** » Thu Apr 27, 2006 8:42 pm

mattthemuppet wrote:Sadly no pics of the smaller model, which I'd be more interested in.

As far as I understand, the Raven model looks just the same as the bigger Condor model except that it only has two heatpipes and a shorter heatsink, so there's probably not much to see.

StealthGirl · Post by **StealthGirl** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 7:53 am

Hi guys,

I work for the company, so getting this feedback is great. I'll pass it along so we get those flash problems fixed. Also, if you'd like I can get some more pics posted here. You're right though, the Raven cooler is exactly the same configuration, just shorter wings. We're going to try to get a review here at SPCR, so hopefully you'll get a detailed analysis in a month or so.

Thanks for posting this here. If you have any questions, just ask.

Thanks!

NoizEnvader · Post by **NoizEnvader** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 8:52 am

Yes, please do post more pics.

Post by **CA_Steve** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 9:43 am

I don't know about others, but my default browsing mode is flash=disabled.

mattthemuppet · Post by **mattthemuppet** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 5:46 pm

cool! Look forwarding to seeing more info + reviews! Some info on compatibility would be very useful as well, particularly with the more difficult AGP (HSI) cards. ta!

arca · Post by **arca** » Mon May 29, 2006 11:44 pm

Anything new on this??

whoatethepies · Post by **whoatethepies** » Tue May 30, 2006 11:20 am

Looks good, but their website still lists it as unavaliable (directly at least)

Baloubic · Post by **Baloubic** » Wed May 31, 2006 1:27 am

I want to see more of this... Looks what many of us has been waiting for...

chdude3 · Post by **chdude3** » Wed May 31, 2006 5:32 am

CA_Steve wrote:I don't know about others, but my default browsing mode is flash=disabled.

You're not the only one. If a site REQUIRES Flash to visit, then it's a site I'm not going to be visting. Nothing more annoying then Flash dependent websites. Adds useless clutter and slows down the browsing due to the retarded transitions between pages.

Marco_Polo · Post by **Marco_Polo** » Sat Jun 03, 2006 5:34 pm

Now Available!

yum....x1800/1900+silence.....

SPCR please review!

theyangster · Post by **theyangster** » Sat Jun 03, 2006 9:29 pm

$50 shipped USPS for the Raven

$64 shipped USPS for the Condor

If it works....It might be worth it, but....

chdude3 · Post by **chdude3** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 5:02 am

$92US to Canada. It may be good, but it can't be that good. There are too many other options that will provide silence at a much lower cost.

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 5:43 am

This product looks very ibnteresting, but without an SPCR review there wont be many takers.

StealthGirl said they would be sending SPCR a sample to review. Whats going on.???

$ 90 to the UK, is a bit much.

Andy

mbetea · Post by **mbetea** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 8:03 am

I see what could be a potential problem in that it does not look like these coolers will fit (depending on their exact height on the vertical part) when running with a tower cooler on the cpu. On my Abit An8-Ultra I have 60mm between the bottom of the Ninja and my video card. The vertical part looks taller than 60mm. They list a measurement of 200mm which I'm assuming is the length of the "fin" part. But no height measurements. The nf4 Abit boards have a pretty standard layout similar to many other nf4 boards.

Also these tower coolers overhang the video card (measuring from the motherboard tray to opposite side of case) so even with these video coolers protruding out, it doesn't look like there will be any clearance there either. I'm not running a fan on my Ninja, but if you are, that's even more height added to the Ninja.

But this is just an observation until someone gets it and posts actual specs or aerocase posts specs.

chdude3 · Post by **chdude3** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 12:14 pm

mbetea wrote:I see what could be a potential problem in that it does not look like these coolers will fit (depending on their exact height on the vertical part) when running with a tower cooler on the cpu.

Order it with the wing facing down, then.

whoatethepies · Post by **whoatethepies** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 12:59 pm

Looks like all that weight hanging off one side of the PCB could cause it to bend pretty badly over time as well... Depends how good the mounting bracket is.

mbetea · Post by **mbetea** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 4:43 pm

Order it with the wing facing down, then.

I emailed them my questions that was what they recommended. But at least for the current generation of nf4 boards, the 16x pcie slot on a lot of boards are in the same spot. And I have 80mm from my video card to the bottom of my case. From the pics, until we get exact specs still looks like a tight fit.

But Katherine from Aero-Case was friendly and offered some details: Specs for these coolers should be up very soon (Wednesday she said) and a press release. Running the cooler in "reverse wing" configuration results in a 3C higher temp than the standard wing position(which isn't bad). The max height of the cpu cooler, if using one of these video coolers with the standard wing, is 110mm.

Unlike some other companies I have to say I was surprised that
a) I got a response at all
b) Their initial response wasn't an automated reply
c) They replied the same day I emailed them
d) Their reply was an actual person
e) The person sounded interested in what I said
f) The person was helpful

I mentioned that I heard of them at SPCR's forums and in her reply she said they would like SPCR to review their coolers.

GamingGod · Post by **GamingGod** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 7:05 pm

would someone post the pic of it so I can see it, firefox wont open that page for me

Tephras · Post by **Tephras** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 11:28 pm

See pics here.

JazzJackRabbit · Post by **JazzJackRabbit** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 6:30 am

I'm sort of skeptical. Whenever a company boasts a mouthful it always makes me think of thermaltake. Lots and lots of PR mixed with some chest thumping (Tarzan anyone?) and some exaggeration (for example 7900gt cards can be colled with aerocool coolers almost passively).

I'd like to see a proper review though, however even if the results are all they claim to be, the price is ridiculous. The cooler doesn't cost more than $15 to manufacture so almost 300% markup seems a bit excessive.

ultraboy · Post by **ultraboy** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 7:21 am

Both coolers look good; however, .....

1. Very expensive for what it does (still need to see review),
2. Weight of heatsink sandwich hangs perpendicular to the card scares me..,
3. Info from their web site indicates that it is made to order, so fitting and possibility to re-use on another card is questionable...though that somewhat explain the high price, justifiable or not

.

afrost · Post by **afrost** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 8:48 am

If they are a small US company that makes their products here I might be willing to pay a bit more to support the local guy.

oh and they also have a 100% satisfaction policy....worth something for sure.

Hopefully we will see a review soon.

Engine · Post by **Engine** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 3:26 pm

Well, for whatever it's worth, I certainly wouldn't buy one without seeing a review on SPCR or another, similarly-minded site with a solid reputation. They look like good coolers, but, you know, I look like a good guy, too, and I wouldn't buy me without a review.

Also...gods, how to say this best? Flash is the ass. It adds nothing to the website, and detracts greatly. Flash has its place; being your entire website isn't it. For more professional references, read...well, anything, ever, about designing for web useability. Anything. Ever.

Anyway, no matter how much of a berk I might sound, I'm completely overwhelmed with excitement for the product. I hope it's everything it purports to be.

JonV · Post by **JonV** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 4:48 pm

JazzJackRabbit wrote:Whenever a company boasts a mouthful it always makes me think of thermaltake. Lots and lots of PR mixed with some chest thumping (Tarzan anyone?) and some exaggeration (for example 7900gt cards can be colled with aerocool coolers almost passively).

I'm not sure what, if any, connection you're trying to make between Thermaltake and Aerocool here. But the best Thermaltake cooler, the Schooner, should be able to cool a 7900GT passively just fine. (It's cooling my 7800GT with near-zero airflow right now, and from what I hear the 7900GT runs slightly cooler than the 7800GT.)