X-bit labs

Roundup: AeroCool Double Power, Thermaltake DuOrb, Zalman VF1000 LED and a Few Other Good VGA Coolers

Category: Coolers

by Sergey Lepilov

[ 02/26/2008 | 04:13 PM ]

Today we are going to talk about three new VGA cooling solutions a few solutions we have already talked about before from AeroCool, Zalman, Thermaltake and Arctic Cooling. Let’s find out which one is best from this first roundup of the series.

Table of contents:

• AeroCool Double Power (EN-51040)
  
• Package and Accessories
  
• Design and Functionality
  
• Installation Tips
  
• Thermaltake DuOrb (CL-G0102)
  
• Package and Accessories
  
• Design and Functionality
  
• Installation Tips
  
• Zalman VF1000 LED
  
• Package and Accessories
  
• Design and Functionality
  
• Installation Tips
  
• Arctic Cooling Turbo Module
  
• Package and Accessories
  
• Design and Functionality
  
• Installation Tips
  
• Technical Specifications
  
• Testbed and Methods
  
• Cooling Efficiency and Acoustic Performance
  
• Acoustic Performance
  
• Cooling Efficiency on MSI Radeon HD 3870 512MB
  
• Cooling Efficiency on Leadtek GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB
  
• Conclusion
  

When AMD Radeon HD 3850/3870 and Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT graphics cards appeared in the market, the search for alternative cooling systems regained its acuteness. The reason for that were very noisy and not efficient enough reference coolers on these graphics cards. In fact, standard cooling systems have two work modes: the coolers are either quiet but not efficient enough, or demonstrate pretty decent cooling efficiency but also generate too much noise. You can get the Radeon HD 3870 cards to run a little quieter by reflashing new BIOS with “normal powerplay”, but they still heat up a lot. Even the larger fan blades of the new reference cooler on GeForce 8800 GT don’t really change anything. Of course, overclocking fans will hardly be happy about this so they inevitably face the problem of finding a worthy replacement for their default VGA cooling system.

Our lab tests new VGA cooling solutions on a regular basis. Today, we are going to continue this good tradition by introducing to you three new coolers and a “Turbo Module” and comparing their performance against that of a few other cooling solutions we have already discussed before. We would like to present to you two new solutions from Thermaltake and Zalman as well as new VGA cooler from AeroCool. These coolers are very different in their heatsink design, but all of them use copper heatpipes. These days, however, almost all the cooling solutions for computer systems use heatpipe technology.

So, let’s get started. The first participant we would like you to meet is the new system from AeroCool.

AeroCool Double Power (EN-51040)

Package and Accessories

We have recently introduced to you new CPU coolers from AeroCool Advanced Technologies (see our article called Four Heatpipes for Two: AeroCool SilverWind and Xfire Coolers Reviewed). This time we are going to talk about their VGA cooling solution of very original design. The cooler packaging is made of carton base covered with transparent plastic casing shaped up as a cooler and its components:

The reverse side of the package contains a detailed list of the cooler specifications and pinpoints its key features. AeroCool Double Power cooler is made in Taiwan.

The accessories bundle includes the following components:

• Fan rotation speed controller;
• A set of screws and pads;
• Eight aluminum heatsinks for the BGA graphics memory chips;
• Aero-70 thermal grease;
• Step-by-step installation guide.