New AC X1800/X1900 Video Cooler

[Turbo91Bird]

Simple and quick review.

Pros: A lot quieter. Cooled my card by maybe 5C. Only 20 bucks.

Cons: Heats your mobo and everything else inside your PC by +10*C.

Note: Make sure you don't have a mofset or anything right below your video card, otherwise it will get DRILLED with hot air from the cooler. I don't know why they designed the cooler this way. Why not just exit the air out the back inside of directly onto the motherboard?


Conclusion: Not worth it. Stick with the stock cooler until a better design is made.

[Mr.Ferrari]

Im not sure if you have case flow problems or what, but with that cooler on my X1800XT im getting 47 idle on the core and 56 load with 660 core and 850 mem mild oc. Compared to stock coolers 70ish load.

[Turbo91Bird]

I hope I don't. I have 2 rear 80mm fans (blowing air in), 1 80mm up top blowing out, one side 80mm side panel (blowing out) and 2 80mm up front blowing in (but they are weaker). I am not the only one with the case temps. increasing by 10-15*C though if you look on newegg.com for this cooler and check it's feedback they will tell you the same thing. Great cooler for the video card, but heats the rest of the case up by a good amount.

Doesn't help that I have a mofset directly under my video card cooler where it blows hot air onto. lol. Just don't know why they couldn't have just blew it out the back of the pc or something...just poor design if you ask me.

[Mr.Ferrari]

Well its better then zalmans design, considereing it just blows air everywhere. And its designed to cool the mosfets and regulators (red heatsink) on the card. They get pretty dang hot. And that fan only pushes 9.67 cfm.

What really helped my temps was a 80mm fan ziptied to the end of the card blowing air down horizontaly through the card. Not only providing cool air directly to the fan on the cooler. But lowering my mosfet and regulator temps by around 20c. And giving me 5-10c less on the core.

[glc]

Your rear fans should be exhaust and the side fan should be intake.

[Turbo91Bird]

Originally Posted by glc Your rear fans should be exhaust and the side fan should be intake.

It is like that now but I changed them up to try and get hot air off the card cooler since that side panel fan was directly over the video card cooler. I figured I would try and suck the hot air out (which it was very hot) and used to 2 rear ones to sort of balance the intake. I tried these both ways with this cooler and it was still too hot. The cooler is nice, but the design was flawed where it should have the air exit off the card. It is so close to the motherboard where the air exits the card that I can't even fit my finger between the cooler and the motherboard. That sort of direct flow of hot air off this hot card right onto a mofset on the motherboard is not a good idea.

What really helped my temps was a 80mm fan ziptied to the end of the card blowing air down horizontaly through the card.

So you modified the video card cooler to make it cool good? Maybe that is what I needed to do. Either way, shouldn't have to do that. Paid money for a vga cooler that works with my entire machine w/o modification. Oh well. My review stands, lol.

Newegg.com reviews
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Custra...82E16835186002

[jfk]

Funny, I have the Arctic Cooling Accelero X2 on my X1900 and it went from low 50's idle and up to 90C after a few hours of Oblivion to 39-45C idle (depending on room temp) and a max of about 70C after a few hours of Oblivion. I saw NO rise in case or CPU temps. I think you should redo your case fans so that the fronts blow in (if weak, replace them), side fan in, and rear and top out. You'll get MUCH better air movement.

I also agree with the comment about the Zalman. Everyone raves about it, and yet it heats up case temps and simply recirculates hot air in the case. I don't get it.......

[Mr.Ferrari]

Another reason I like the Accelero is it has the fan sitting on the top of the card. Instead of the middle like the zalman. If your have a sound card right in front of that fan..well where you gonna get your airflow. Accelero's fan will take fresh air from above that said card.

[Turbo91Bird]

Originally Posted by jfk Funny, I have the Arctic Cooling Accelero X2 on my X1900 and it went from low 50's idle and up to 90C after a few hours of Oblivion to 39-45C idle (depending on room temp) and a max of about 70C after a few hours of Oblivion. I saw NO rise in case or CPU temps. I think you should redo your case fans so that the fronts blow in (if weak, replace them), side fan in, and rear and top out. You'll get MUCH better air movement. I also agree with the comment about the Zalman. Everyone raves about it, and yet it heats up case temps and simply recirculates hot air in the case. I don't get it.......

In my previous post you can see I already tried that to no avail. I put the stock cooler back in there (50's idle and 70s on load) and my mobo temps are back down to where they are normally at (30's). In the majority of the new egg reviews on the Accelero X2 you can see that even the people that gave good reviews (and the bad ones of course) said their system temps increased by a substantial amount.

[jfk]

Originally Posted by Turbo91Bird In my previous post you can see I already tried that to no avail. I put the stock cooler back in there (50's idle and 70s on load) and my mobo temps are back down to where they are normally at (30's). In the majority of the new egg reviews on the Accelero X2 you can see that even the people that gave good reviews (and the bad ones of course) said their system temps increased by a substantial amount.

Don't know what to say about the reviews. Nothing against you, but I put about...oh ZERO value on Newegg reviews. I suppose if you have a mid tower case, wire clutter, less than ideal airflow, or the temp sensor is right below the exhaust, it would show higher temps, but seriously, is the Accelero worse than a Zalman in that respect? My Lian Li case exhausts hot air quite nicely. I have had NO rise in mobo temps or case temps after installation. My case may not be a full tower, but it IS larger than most mid towers. I have two front 80's blowing in, an 80 blowing out the back and another 80 out the top, plus the one 120 fan on my FSP PSU. Additionally, I took out two unused PCI covers out of the back to provide any additional air needed and altough I don't have the most well done cables, they are at least bundled and out of the way of air movement. Now, maybe my A8N-E board has the sensor mounted differently, but again I've had no trouble. I LOVE this thing and can't recommend it enough for a successful, quiet answer to the stock cooler.

[Turbo91Bird]

Just a little update on this. I simply put AS5 on the stock cooler after removing this cooler and my temps are almost the same as with the aftermarket cooler from AC and my motherboard temps are back to normal.

And just for the record, I have a full tower case, wiring is NOT cluttered and I have great airflow. This cooler just doesn't work well when you have mofsets directly below the cooler's exhaust. Simple as that. If I didn't have any mofsets below it and it was just bare motherboard in that area, than I probably wouldn't have a problem other than an increase in temps inside the case. Just do some research and check where your mofsets are or if there is anything important right below your cooler on your motherboard. It isn't rocket science. Hot air from your video card being blown directly onto a part is going to make it hot wheather you have the greatest case airflow or not.

That's why I think you see mixed reviews from people.