Custom Cooling: Deepcool's Dracula And Arctic's Accelero Xtreme

[cleeve]

Overclocking AMD's Radeon HD 7970 requires effective cooling, but the company's design is incompatible with most aftermarket heat sinks. Arctic and Deepcool claim to have solutions able to get the job done, without the reference cooler's loud fan.

Custom Cooling: Deepcool's Dracula And Arctic's Accelero Xtreme : Read more

 

[aznshinobi]

Give me one please...

But, would be nice to see the coolers compared to some mainstream solutions. IE the HIS IceQ X2 or Sapphire Toxic, etc. etc.

 

[andle riddum]

One warning to prospective buyers of Arctic products, their fans are really junk. I have/had S1 with turbo module, twin turbo, twin turbo PRO...and the fans failed within 1 year or so. Now I have normal fans zip tied, not pretty

 

[ShadyHamster]

I've never had a problem with arctic fans, the accelero xtreme for my HD5870 is still running perfect and its just over 2 years old now, same goes for the twin turbo i bought years ago for my HD3850.

btw nice article

 

[theconsolegamer]

Wait, was really necessary to apply thermal paste to both faces of the shim?

 

[cilliers]

Guys!

This surely looks impressive (giant graphics card and oversize heat cooler), but is this "eye candy" for the technically inclined PC enthusiast really moving forward, or just another pile of copper pipes sold at a price established out of pure value perception? This article got me thinking... Are we unknowingly creating a market demand for cooling products that make little sense in the grand scheme of things, nor shows little technological advancement? Why do we get so excited when a graphics card becomes so hot during peak operation that it requires cooling beyond standard specification. In engineering terms, any system that transforms such a large amount of electrical energy into heat as a side effect would be considered inefficient. By creating a market for "aftermarket" cooling, we do not only show our tolerance for inefficiency, but also create a booming demand for lackluster "solutions".

 

[mubin]

I still love sapphire cooling system. Good for moderate oc and non-oc.

 

[apache_lives]

give me a reference card and cooler any day -- they last a lot longer (fans especially), cool the ram/vrm properly (manufacturers spec) and they help keep the card from bending/warping from the weight, and are less likely to be overclocked aka to spec = rock solid, long lasting card

this applys to all mid-high end nvidia/ati(amd) video cards

 

[WyomingKnott]

Why "Dracula?" Because it sucks?

 

[jtd871]

@theconsolegamer

That's how you transfer heat from the shim to the unmodified Accelero III. I wonder if JB Weld would work better...although that would permanently attach the shim to the Accelero III.

@cilliers

The value is in the noise reduction at load. These processors run hot because they are doing a great deal of work pushing electrons around. Consider that incandescent bulbs work the same way - the friction causes the filament to get so hot that it glows. If you don't want a thermally hot/power hungry card for philosophical reasons, then don't buy one.

@W(h)yKnott

I imagine that "Dracula" is intended to connote sucking the heat away from the 79xx. The fact that these tests show that they are relatively inefficient at doing so makes for a humorous double entendre, like your handle.

 

[luciferano]

[citation][nom]theconsolegamer[/nom]Wait, was really necessary to apply thermal paste to both faces of the shim?[/citation]

Unless you don't like not burning the GPU, pretty much. You might get away without it, but temps would be far higher. Maybe if you really lapped the cooler and shim you could get away with it, but I'd doubt that using no thermal paste at all would be a good idea even in that situation.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]theconsolegamer[/nom]Wait, was really necessary to apply thermal paste to both faces of the shim?[/citation]

Absolutely. If you don't, contact wouldn't be uniform and you'd have dead spots.

Thermal paste is important, but the trick is to use as little as necessary, not to slather on gobs.

 

[horaciopz]

For whomever that is wiling to spend 80+ on a 400ish GPU a smarter choice would be a wattercooler block and conections.

Its very unlikely that someone with such card is going to have air cooling "upgrade", since the WC setups are afordable. If that person wants to get better cooling solution, he wouldnt spend money on air cooling, just throwing on it an radiator or connect the GPU block to an existing radiator would be sufficient, better for looks, and better performance.

 

[luciferano]

[citation][nom]cilliers[/nom]Guys!This surely looks impressive (giant graphics card and oversize heat cooler), but is this "eye candy" for the technically inclined PC enthusiast really moving forward, or just another pile of copper pipes sold at a price established out of pure value perception? This article got me thinking... Are we unknowingly creating a market demand for cooling products that make little sense in the grand scheme of things, nor shows little technological advancement? Why do we get so excited when a graphics card becomes so hot during peak operation that it requires cooling beyond standard specification. In engineering terms, any system that transforms such a large amount of electrical energy into heat as a side effect would be considered inefficient. By creating a market for "aftermarket" cooling, we do not only show our tolerance for inefficiency, but also create a booming demand for lackluster "solutions".[/citation]

If I had a card that used 1000 watts of power but was ten times faster than the Radeon 7970 in every way, it would still be the most energy efficient graphics card in the world today. I also don't think that after-market VGA cooling is a booming market for lackluster solutions. The after market VGA cooling industry probably isn't booming because even the minority of overclockers in this world tend to not use an aftermarket cooler on their graphics card(s). Even then, just because there are some lackluster solutions doesn't mean that they sell nearly as well as the good solutions.

 

[killerclick]

[citation][nom]cilliers[/nom]Are we unknowingly creating a market demand for cooling products that make little sense in the grand scheme of things, nor shows little technological advancement? Why do we get so excited when a graphics card becomes so hot during peak operation that it requires cooling beyond standard specification.[/citation]

I buy aftermarket coolers for noise reduction only, I can't stand a loud computer. Now my machine is so quiet, it's hard to tell whether it's off or on, even when it's under load.
And having more efficient hardware wouldn't help with the noise, the OEMs would just put smaller coolers and smaller/faster fans, so noise output would be similar.

 

[Guest]

Bad review is bad.
Review the dracula with two 140mm fans or three 120mm fans as the design was intended, to show optimal performance.
Overclock as far as you can with each design so we can see the value added to the card.
Without that information this entire article is pointless, and leads to dumba$$ comments like 'why dracula, because it sucks?'
How about review the design as it was meant to be used?
*And what kind of a tech journalist doesn't have a few spare 120/140mm fans laying around? WTF!!!

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]Nathanael Kaur[/nom]Review the dracula with two 140mm fans or three 120mm fans as the design was intended, to show optimal performance.[/citation]

The 7970 doesn't NEED more, temps were awesome. Noise, space, and cost also comes into play.

[citation][nom]Nathanael Kaur[/nom]Overclock as far as you can with each design so we can see the value added to the card.[/citation]

You think a slight temperature difference between the Dracula and Accelero will affect the overclock? That's just silly. Limits will be set by voltage unless temps are astronomical.

[citation][nom]Nathanael Kaur[/nom]Bad review is bad.[/citation]

Overdramatic complaint is overdramatic.

 

[Onihikage]

When the Sandia cooler makes its debut, I have a feeling the third-party GPU cooler market will explode.

 

[sephmeister]

What's the point of blowing an extra 80 on this and voiding your warranty? The Gigabyte versions are usually some of the most affordable versions anyways and come with coolers nearly identical to these...

 

[A Bad Day]

[citation][nom]cilliers[/nom]Guys!This surely looks impressive (giant graphics card and oversize heat cooler), but is this "eye candy" for the technically inclined PC enthusiast really moving forward, or just another pile of copper pipes sold at a price established out of pure value perception? This article got me thinking... Are we unknowingly creating a market demand for cooling products that make little sense in the grand scheme of things, nor shows little technological advancement? Why do we get so excited when a graphics card becomes so hot during peak operation that it requires cooling beyond standard specification. In engineering terms, any system that transforms such a large amount of electrical energy into heat as a side effect would be considered inefficient. By creating a market for "aftermarket" cooling, we do not only show our tolerance for inefficiency, but also create a booming demand for lackluster "solutions".[/citation]

OC most silicon chips, and they will lose efficiency.

 

[luciferano]

[citation][nom]A Bad Day[/nom]OC most silicon chips, and they will lose efficiency.[/citation]

It depends on the chips and how you do it. For example, take an FX-4100. Overclock from 3.6GHz to say 3.9GHz and then undervolt a little. You'll be a little more energy efficient. Ivy Bridge is also pretty good at underclocking and then overclocking at voltages under stock voltage.

AMD's Radeon 7xxx graphics cards with GCN GPUs are also good at this. I'm not sure of how good Nvidia's GTX 6xx cards with Kepler GPUs undervolt and won't make claims about it.

 

[husker]

The graphs are pointless if they do not start at a zero point. Yes they are still correct, but as a graph they are not useful because they no longer show graphically how numbers compare but force you to imagine the difference in the same way that looking at raw numbers does. In fact, bad graphs can be worse than looking at numbers.

This graph shows the difference in height between identical twins:
Sam ***************
Bob **

Here is the same information where the graph starts at zero:
Sam *******************************
Bob. ******************************

Which is more helpful as a graph? (By the way, Sam eats a healthier diet)

 

[luciferano]

[citation][nom]husker[/nom]The graphs are pointless if they do not start at a zero point. Yes they are still correct, but as a graph they are not useful because they no longer show graphically how numbers compare but force you to imagine the difference in the same way that looking at raw numbers does. In fact, bad graphs can be worse than looking at numbers.This graph shows the difference in height between identical twins:Sam ***************Bob **Here is the same information where the graph starts at zero:Sam *******************************Bob. ******************************Which is more helpful as a graph? (By the way, Sam eats a healthier diet)[/citation]

The only graphs that don't start at zero are the noise graphs and only people who are ignorant of how noise measurement works would want them to start at zero because DBa is exponential. Every three DBa doubles in noise volume, so 40DBa is only one half of 43DBa and 46DBa is one half of 49DBa. Starting at zero wouldn't make any sense because DBa is a logarithm of volume.

 

[NeatOman]

I always do a test with stock coolers performance with high quality thermal paste, sometimes that makes a 10+ Celsius difference in temperature at full load. I'm certain that the stock cooler can out preform the antic offering with a simple change in thermal paste.

 

[NeatOman]

[citation][nom]NeatOman[/nom]I'm certain that the stock cooler can out preform the antic offering with a simple change in thermal paste.[/citation]

I mean Arctic, sorry.