Artic Cooling Accelero S1 & X1950Pro

They make noise, too.

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Phlebas
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Artic Cooling Accelero S1 & X1950Pro

Post by Phlebas » Fri May 25, 2007 8:59 am

I've just fitted an Accelero S1 to my X1950Pro card and thought you might like to know the results.

Installation was a bit more complex than it need to have been because the ram heatsinks wouldn't stay stuck to the ram! I ended up refitting the ram heatsink that came with my X1950Pro (an HIS ICEQ 3 model) but I had to bend some of the fins (of the RAM heatsink, not the S1) to allow the S1 to fit over it.

As you are no doubt aware the S1 heatsink is very large. It didn't interfere with any of my motherboard (A8N-SLI Premium) components but it did come up against my custom hard disk suspension solution. I've readjusted the latter to imrpove matters although it isn't completely free of the heatsink.

Fired up the PC and the idle temps were pretty much the same as before at around 45 C. Started up the racing sim rFactor which seems to stress graphics cards as much as anything else and the temps started rising steadily. With the ICEQ 3 cooler the temps would max out at about 63 C. I'm not sure how high they got with the S1 since the screen went blank first... The heatsinks felt hot to the touch so I don't think it was a result of my not fitting them well enough.

Oh well, to be honest I had half expected this and had bought a Noctura NF-S12-800 fan in anticipation of needing it. I fitted this to the heatsink using tie wraps, reducing the voltage with the fan's ULNA adaptor. With this the temperatures are great - 37 C idle and 50 C load - the fan can't be heard over the other fans in the case and, in particular, it doesn't have the nasty ticking that the ICEQ 3 one had started to exhibit. Internal case temperatures are maybe a degree or two higher but I can live with that.

In conclusion I don't really consider this cooler suitable for passive cooling of an X1950Pro unless maybe you have very good airflow in your case. But with the addition of a near-silent fan it does very well indeed and is far superior to the ICEQ 3 in terms of both noise & performance. But with the fan attached it does take up a good three PCI slots so certainly not suitable for a crowded case!

Cheers,
Richard

mr. poopyhead
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Post by mr. poopyhead » Fri May 25, 2007 9:28 am

the VPU recover kicked in at 63 degrees?? you should really contact that manufacturer about this... i've been told that the GPU should be able to handle over 100 degrees, although not many of us are willing to run at that temperature constantly...
i run my X1950XT at around 80-85 degrees with my HR-03 and low RPM fan.

you should use something a little more stressful to load your graphics card... rthdribl does the trick nicely...

thanks for the heads up on the S1 though!

Phlebas
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Post by Phlebas » Fri May 25, 2007 10:47 am

No, 63 was the temp the ICEQ 3 cooler maxed out at under load. I don't know what temp the VPU had gotten to with the passive S1 when the screen went blank - I had to reboot to recover from it. Without further tests (which I don't intend to do!) I can't say what temp it got to, or if it was even the VPU which was the problem - I guess it could have been a memory chip since they were being passively cooled with the same heatsink that they had previously been receiving some active cooling.

I've just tried rthdribl and that also maxed out at 50 C.

Cheers,
Richard

Matija
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Post by Matija » Fri May 25, 2007 11:09 am

Do you have heatsinks on VRMs? If not, you should.

See this thread: http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?p=229657 (HEAVY GRAPHICS!)



mr. poopyhead: Is your HR-03 on top of the card, or hanging below? I still haven't mounted mine on my X1950 Pro... I'll do it tomorrow.

mr. poopyhead
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Post by mr. poopyhead » Fri May 25, 2007 12:01 pm

Phlebas wrote:No, 63 was the temp the ICEQ 3 cooler maxed out at under load. I don't know what temp the VPU had gotten to with the passive S1 when the screen went blank - I had to reboot to recover from it. Without further tests (which I don't intend to do!) I can't say what temp it got to, or if it was even the VPU which was the problem - I guess it could have been a memory chip since they were being passively cooled with the same heatsink that they had previously been receiving some active cooling.

I've just tried rthdribl and that also maxed out at 50 C.

Cheers,
Richard
you can use rivatuner to display the temperatures on screen while you're running the software to load your card... try and see what the passive temps are just before the thing crashes...

@matija: my HR-03 is "above" the card, so that the fins are on the other side of the PCB from the GPU and RAM.

on another note... does anyone know where the VRMs on the sapphire X1950XT are? i think i put a heatsink on it, but some other sites i've read seem to show that there may be more than one VRM....

Phlebas
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Post by Phlebas » Fri May 25, 2007 12:15 pm

I'm using the VRM heatsink that comes with the S1.

Matija
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Post by Matija » Fri May 25, 2007 12:31 pm

The X1950 Pro has three VRMs. I don't know about the XT... But I'd be surprised if it had less than three.

This is a high-res picture of the Pro: http://img.techpowerup.org/070504/untitled.jpg - the VRMs probably look the same on the XT.

Phlebas
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Post by Phlebas » Fri May 25, 2007 2:07 pm

The one heatsink covers all three of them (assuming you're actually talking to me & not mr. poopyhead, I've got the PRO, not the XT).

NB: The S1 comes with one VRM to fit the X1950XT, X1900 & X1800 and a separate one for the X1950Pro.

HueyCobra
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Post by HueyCobra » Fri May 25, 2007 7:36 pm

On a related note, PowerColor's X1950 Pro SCS3 with Accelero cooler has been reviewed by X-bit labs.

HueyCobra
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Post by HueyCobra » Thu May 31, 2007 11:32 pm

X-bit Labs has now also reviewed the Accelero S1 & S2.

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