Accelero X2 Testing on X1900XT with XTX Bios.

[Kunaak]

this is just a small preview of the write up I got to do on this thing, plus, it's just initial testing so I got alittle poking around to do, to find out why it's doing a few weird things.
but on with the preview.



Package :

the heatsink in it's package, is smaller and lighter then I thought it would be.
from the pics I had seen before this, it looked like a giant chunk of metal, that one could lay down and start bench pressing with, if they needed some muscles... this is not so.
the card is alot lighter then I had anticipated.
about half the weight of the actual stock ATI cooler.
for some reason, I guess the heatsink just looks bigger then it really is, in the pics I've seen of this so far.
the instructions are easy to read, and pretty much idiot proof.
the mounting hardware is smaller then I thought it would be.
which can be a bad thing, if you lose a washer, the mounting hardware is pretty much gonna be useless till you can get washers for it again.

Thermal Pads :

heres the thermal pads used for the mem chips.

they are made by 3M, and are double sided sticky pads.
they seem more effective then the ones on the ATI cooler, and the results will show what I mean in a few moments here...



Dimension :

once you install the card, it's still going to be a 2 slot cooling solution...
but honestly, if this card used anything low profile, I wouldn't put it on this card. in my opinion, the X1900 cards, just run too damn hot for air, and I want all the cooling I can get for it. if that means a 2 slot cooling solution, then do it. I am not going to complain, as long as it cools well.



Installed.

installing the X2 takes about 20 minutes.
theres nothing awkward or difficult about it.
if you can remove the original heatsink, you can definatly put the X2 on there with no hassles.

looks good, matchs it just fine.



Results :

For testing, I just used 3 things so far.

Fear at 1440 x 900 AA at 2X, AF at 16X. Vsync On. All other details at max, except Soft Shadows Off.

Doom 3, I love this game, and wanted to see it in Ultra Mode.
1680 x 1050, 2 X AA, 16X AF, Vsync on, All options at Max.

3DMark 2006 Pro.
default run, with the 2 (3 extra?) extra portions of the benchmark ran too.
this benchmark takes about 13 minutes to complete, if you run the entire thing.

with Doom 3, and the stock cooler, I was having major problems with the card overheating and crashing back into windows.
upon looking at my temp logs, the temps were hitting 83-84C after about 10 minutes in the game... which is where I would get a crash, and VPU Recoverd error.
this is with stock XTX clocks...
needless to say, I was pissed, cause whats the point of having a 512 meg card, if you enable ultra mode, that supposedly uses 512 megs... then the card itself isn't stable enough to actually be able to run at that setting cause the card overheats?

with the Accelero X2 However.... its a much different story.
I still routinely hit 70C in Ultra Mode.
but now, I almost never see anything higher then about 72C.
plus... the game is nice and stable now, no more crashing
the X2 was 11C lower in this case for me.

With FEAR I've never had a issue with heat or anything else crashing this game.
I just find the X1900 card isn't fast enough to be able to keep 1680 x 1050 playable unless I give up way too many features... and I kinda refuse to play a game, if it looks like crap... whats the point of a high end card, if you have to run the games looking like crap?
so I usually run the game at 1440 x 900, with good settings so it looks great, and still plays good too.
my temp logs with this game usually hit between 77-78C.
with the X2, again, they are around 70-72C.

so not really any different then Doom 3 was, however, still lower the the stock cooler ever did.

Lastly, 3DMark2006 this benchmark, suprisingly doesn't really seem to stress the videocard very much, in terms of heat.
but it did show me a few interesting things, when I began comparing the temp logs.

Stock GPU hits about 75-76C tops.
X2 Cooler hits about 70-71C tops.

Again... 70C seems about the normal temp range for this heatsink.

But, theres a anomally here.
the PCB temps are 1C higher with the X2, and the Power Regulator is about 4-5C hotter with the X2.

the PCB temp, is well within the margin of error range. 1C isn't really gonna tell me anything, so theres not much I can say there.
but the Power Regulator Temps being higher is a definate thing to look into.
I have a theory on that however.
see the X2 has a small little flap at the back of the card, intended to cool the power regulator...
I don't think it's actually helping, so much as, just blowing hot air over them.
see, the X2's core, does indeed, keep the actual GPU cooler, but I suspect this also means, the heatsink itself is alittle hotter.
the fan, is just pushing hotter air, over the Power Regulator now...
Better Cooling of the Core means hotter fins, meaning air gets hotter passing over those fins which = Hotter Power Regulator...
thats my guess at the moment.

but in the end, the card does OC better, and does run cooler.
except for the power regulator...
so it seems to be a trade off so far.
but in this case, I will definatly take it.

I can figure out a way to cool the Power Regulator better, I haven't been able to do much about the core temps of this videocard yet... so if a cooler core, means a slightly hotter power regulator, then thats fine by me.
I can always pop a fan over the Power Regulator, but theres not much I can do, if a heatsink sucks and is generally ineffective... like the ATI Stock cooler seems to be.

if anyones Curious, heres my actual Temp logs from the 3dmark2006 runs.

HERE

And Finally...

heres the real reason one should be interested in this card...
it's soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo damn quiet.
even at 100% it's about 3 times quieter, then the ATI cooler was.
the ATI cooler at 100% is seriously loud enough to hurt my ears after a few minutes.
its like listening to a hair dryer from a few feet away.
this heatsink, at 100% is pretty much silent from a few feet away, and even up close, is just a small "whirr" sound and little else.
nothing like the horrible noise I been hearing with the Stock Cooler

[alexio]

I think both the stock cooler aswell as the Accelero are not very impressive, 70C is just too hot for my liking. Remember that's in your case under normal conditions. When you have an ambient temp of 30C+ you are going to have a problem with both.

Could you also include the stock cooler with some good thermal paste like AS5, and maby lap the base? When you are done testing can you take the plastic enclosure of and make some pics of the heatsink?

[mindwreck]

quiet is good but the temps are still pretty high.. only wished they kept the exhast design so the warm air doesn't stay inside the case.

[dnottis]

I also got one for review. Try to remove it after those 3m thermal pads are heated - its damn near impossible to get them off without tearing them. I found the unit to be quiet but dumping all that hot air onto the motherboard and in the case of the DFI board right into the chipset not all that wise an idea.


Overall I was not impressed at all -

[Kunaak]

I've never understood how people complain about heatsinks dumping heat on the motherboard.

every heatsink from the begining of computing has done that.
take the Zalman VF900 coming out...

where do you think that heats gonna go?
its just pushing air onto the videocard, which in turn will push hot air, off the videocard... right over the south bridge, just like any other heatsink would.

only a few don't, like ATI's for example won't cause it's a exhaust design.

but what about heatsinks for CPU's...
not a single one that I am aware of, exhaust heat anywhere but inside a case.

how come no one complains about that?
after all, thats going to generate a hell of alot more heat.

heatsinks have always had that one design issue...
the hot air, has no real place to go, after it does what it needs to do.
it's not a issues unique to this videocard cooler, or even heatsink...
its a basic design of all heatsinks in general.

the stock ati cooler I use, has already been modded in every way I could.
I have mentiond this from time to time in the 3D area...
the cooler was using ceramique.
the core was lapped.
it did help, cause my temps before that modding was far worse.

[Cooper]

Quite good solutions - finally some decent replacement for that loud-mouth stock. Great review Kunaak. But I have one question - did you tested on open rig or inside the case. Haven`t noticed that in the article.

[dnottis]

I've never understood how people complain about heatsinks dumping heat on the motherboard.

every heatsink from the begining of computing has done that.
take the Zalman VF900 coming out...

where do you think that heats gonna go?
its just pushing air onto the videocard, which in turn will push hot air, off the videocard... right over the south bridge, just like any other heatsink would.

only a few don't, like ATI's for example won't cause it's a exhaust design.

but what about heatsinks for CPU's...
not a single one that I am aware of, exhaust heat anywhere but inside a case.

how come no one complains about that?
after all, thats going to generate a hell of alot more heat.

heatsinks have always had that one design issue...
the hot air, has no real place to go, after it does what it needs to do.
it's not a issues unique to this videocard cooler, or even heatsink...
its a basic design of all heatsinks in general.

the stock ati cooler I use, has already been modded in every way I could.
I have mentiond this from time to time in the 3D area...
the cooler was using ceramique.
the core was lapped.
it did help, cause my temps before that modding was far worse.

Any of the Arctic Cooling solutions before the retarded Accelero exhaust out the back of the Case.

Which direction should the fan rotate?
The fan of all ATI or NV Silencer coolers should rotate clockwise.
Since a diagonal fan is used, the air is drawn in in a twister. This gives you the feeling of blowing air. Nevertheless the cooler is drawing air out of the case, even it is not a big amount.



The stock X800, X850, X1800, X1900 exhaust out the rear too - they just have loud fans.

[Cooper]

Nice flow in case with few 12cm fans will solve this problem easely

[Kunaak]

Quite good solutions - finally some decent replacement for that loud-mouth stock. Great review Kunaak. But I have one question - did you tested on open rig or inside the case. Haven`t noticed that in the article.

it was in a embarassingly ugly case, that I almost hate to admit I still have, haha...

the Original Black Prometia case.
no prometiea anymore...
but I still have the case.

this is with my back up PC.
Board used was the DFI Ultra D.
Ram Corsair XMS 4000 PT at 283 cas 3-4-3-8-1T.
CPU was Opteron 170 at 10 x 310, with the 180 divider for the ram.
cooling CPU is a Chilly1 unit.

temp logs... Systool. latest version... 649 I think it is...

can't think of anything else.

[swaaye]

The Silencers were wonderful. God I hope they don't give up on blowing the heat out of the case. That would just be stupid. It makes a huge difference.

I own one for both my 9700 and X800GTO2. I was sold the minute I noticed how much cooler my case was running with it on the 9700.

[Starscream]

id like to see a silencer with heatpipes tbh.

a m8 of mine also has a X1800 wich tends to run damn hot, il give him a link on this topic as hes looking for a 3rd party cooler.

although atm its cold overhere i wonder how hot his X1800 will get once its summer and we got another heat wave.

[Kunaak]

id like to see a silencer with heatpipes tbh.

it does have heatpipes in it.

[dnottis]

I gave up on air cooling and went to water. The Maze4 with a MCW6000 on the CPU is cooled by a single 120MM BIP and my idle temps are 28 CPU, 32 GPU - load cpu 38, GPU 41. The CPU is at 3 Ghz @ 1.44v and the GPU (1900xtx) at 690/800.

[biohead]

Though it looks a bit odd to the regular coolers, I still like Thermalright's V1 Ultra. Someone did a slight mod by bending the heatpipes, so the fins attached to it's end could be cooled down by a casefan in the sidepanel, blowing fresh air on them.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...t=89653&page=2
Check Bull Dog's post and his funky mod.
Also, scroll down to the last post, it seems Thermalright is busy on a fully compatible version for X1800 / X1900. Me = pending ...

[[XC]Atomicpineapple]

Hey Kunaak, sorry if I missed this in your article but what fan speed was the stock cooler running at? ATIs default profile or set to 100% or some other fixed speed?

[uwackme]

Am I missing something? But with this installed, the heatpipe is upside down, with the cool end lower than the hot end.

The heatpipe works with the hot end generating steam, and the cool end cooling it back to water. Then the water flows downhill back to the hot end, to be heated again.

That cycle ceases to work well when the pipe is oriented incorrectly.

Thoughts?

[jVIDIA]

I've been a Silencer fan since the VGA model.

It's to see this new Accelero's not blowing the hot air to the outside of the case.

As for noise and performance are the Accelero's mutch better then the NV/ATI Silencer's ?!

[cantankerous]

Thanks for this review kunaak, I have been trying to find a review of the X2 actually on a X1900 based card. All the reviews out there are testing this cooler on an X1800XL or AIW card which run much cooler by default the the X1900 cards making results comparisons useless. I am glad you got a 10c difference on the core, that is fantastic. I get up to about 78c on the stock cooler with the fan running at 82%. I hope to run the X2 at 100% speed and maintain no more than 75c max at all times,this is in the summer when room temps here reach quite high. I really hope this is going to hold up cause I have no other options when it comes to aircooling this card. I am looking very, very forward to the noise reduction as well. If you have anything else to share, please do.

One last thing, Dnottis mentioned a washer issue in the review sample he had had back in the beginning of February. Are those washers present on your retail sample? I just want to make sure there is no outstanding issues I need to be aware of when installing this thing.

[Kunaak]

Hey Kunaak, sorry if I missed this in your article but what fan speed was the stock cooler running at? ATIs default profile or set to 100% or some other fixed speed?

I was using ATI's Dynamic cooling.
I had it modified to run about 5% faster per temp setting, so it was always alittle faster then normal.

the top speed of the ATI fan was about 5500 RPM's.
the top speed of the X2 fan is about 2150 RPM's.

but the X2 at 2100 (full speed) is still cooler, then the stock ATI cooler at 5500... and a hell of alot quieter too

One last thing, Dnottis mentioned a washer issue in the review sample he had had back in the beginning of February. Are those washers present on your retail sample? I just want to make sure there is no outstanding issues I need to be aware of when installing this thing.

I had no problems with washers.
I actually had 4 screws and washers more then I needed.

[Mr Footlong]

Guys, I emailed Arctic Cooling regarding making silencers for the 1900 series as I too have used the silencers for years and just feel a lot better knowing that the hot air is being pushed straight out through the back of the case instead of the Accelero's where they dump the heat internally. My only concern would be the heatsink on the regulator(s) at the back of the card not getting cooled at alldue to the fan sitting directly above it.

Anyway, this is the reply that I got back from Arctic cooling a couple of weeks back:

"Dear Nicholas,

Thank you for your enquiry and your great support.

The Accelero are our latest development and the cooling performance is appropriate for the latest 1900 series card that dissipate so much heat.

Anyway, we will feedback to our engineering team and see if we will have a silencer that is compatible for the latest VGA cards.



Kindly visit www.arctic-cooling.com for more information.



Best Regards,

Arctic Cooling Technical Support"


Just FYI guys. I too personally agree with the Silencer approach being better than the Accelero one so if you want a chance in hell of them making Silencers for out new cards than by all means go spam them via their contact page!

Cheers,

Nick .

[cantankerous]

I have emailed them too. The response I recieved is the same as what is mentioned on their page. They are no longer supporting DHES as they feel it is no longer needed with todays cases being BTX. I guess they think we all have those case types =/.

See here, the quote in question.

Fully Crossfire and BTX compatible
The Accelero 2 is Crossfire compatible with all mainboards and offers in such a configuration exactly the same performance. In contrast to our ATI Silencers, the Accelero is 100% BTX compatible, thus a DHES is not possible/necessary anymore. The hot air is removed by the BTX airflow.

[jVIDIA]

... thus a DHES is not possible/necessary anymore. The hot air is removed by the BTX airflow.

to arctic cooling

1st - we don't all have BTX cases (personally I hate the BTX standard).

2nd - no standard is more effective than the DHES. DHES was the leading advantage of the Silencer's over the other brands/vga coolers. Now the others brands like Zalman are equal to AC.

Wake up AC !!!

[uwackme]

Like i said, the heatpipe design is oriented incorrectly...for ATX. It is oriented CORRECTLY for BTX!!!

So they shipped this for BTX systems, they must be on drugs. Write back to them and tell them 99.9% of people who'd buy the prodict are in ATX cases.

Meantime, it could be dangerous to use the cooler in ATX, as it will actually SUCK.

They could do a heatpipe version, running the pipes over the top to the back, with the fan mounted to blow over the fins on the backside end of the pipes, blowing OUT the back using a second PCI opening on the back, but instead of 2slots card, above card.... it would be behind card, card. If you get my meaning. then everything would line up, the pipes would work correctly, and you could then have the fan blow out the back, rather than directly down aat the motherboard (frying any motherboard based voltreg's next to the x16 connector.

It boggles the mind when industrial/mechanical/thermal design idiocy rears its head.... laughable.

[Daveb2012]

Kunaak did you have stock cooler @ 100% when comparing these two? I just got rid of my FS-V7 to back on a lapped stock cooler which I think was a wise decision.

[Kunaak]

Daveb2012]Kunaak did you have stock cooler @ 100% when comparing these two?

I ran the stock heatsink at 100% during the 3DMark2006 portion of the review process.

but during actual gaming part, where I used FEAR and Doom 3, god no...
the stock heatsink is unbearably loud at 100%.

theres just no way I could possibly play a game, with that heatsink at 100%... unless the whole computer was in another room or something. haha...