High-End Passive cooler from AC

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Mon Dec 18, 2006 8:18 am

At long last this looks like the product that Arctic Cooling wanted to have on the market in August, October, and now in the next 3-months......... or so

At least we now have an actual photo of the item in question.

It certainly lloks to have been designed from the ground up to be passive.

Thin low-profile fins, that are widely spaced and attached to the heatsink via 4 heatpipes looks good from the the efficiency front, while keeping passive cooling at the forefront of the design.

It is a 3+ slot solution in reality so wont be ideal for everyone, as the card + H/S uses 2 slots, and the more space below the heatsink the better the temps will be, and one extra slot is the absolute minimum.

Also the cooler appears to be about 2" - 2.5" above the height of the card bracket, so this wont fit all cases.

I like the look of this, its a shame that it been delayed so much, although AC have nothing on M$ when it comes to delays, and as this is appearing attached to a branded card this really is going to happen, the rest is down to manufacturing and distribution.

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=36428

Andy

aztec · Post by **aztec** » Mon Dec 18, 2006 8:39 am

Very interesting. I wonder how heavy that thing is though, and how well it cools while gaming.

If they can do this for the R600...I'm definitely buying.

nici · Post by **nici** » Mon Dec 18, 2006 11:00 am

"The cards are expected in Q1 2006"

Looks interesting if you want a passively cooled ATi card.

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Mon Dec 18, 2006 11:09 am

There were originally going to be making a nVidia solution as well.

Andy

Tzupy · Post by **Tzupy** » Mon Dec 18, 2006 1:33 pm

It appears to be the Accelero S, which AC web site still claims to be available in December. But it's not yet in the VGA coolers section of their site.
I expect it to be at least as good as the Thermalright HR-03. But I don't think it can be mounted like the VM-101.
It is designed to take advantage of the air that usually flows between the gfx card and the case panel, which is a good thing.

rei · Post by **rei** » Mon Dec 18, 2006 1:45 pm

Too bad the ATI cards still draw too much power compared to the 7-series.

Tzupy · Post by **Tzupy** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 8:30 am

Besides the AC heatsink, the gfx cards need a heatsink to cool the VRM (I don't think the Accelero S contacts the VRM):
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20061219VL202.html

nici · Post by **nici** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 8:40 am

Well both the Inq and digitimes say it cools the VRMs, from the inq

The cooler has a Special heatsink for the voltage regulators and memory cooling.

Tzupy · Post by **Tzupy** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 9:05 am

My point is that the 4-heatpipe heatsink probably doesn't cool the VRM, at least from the pictures I can't tell. It's possible that a stock VRM heatsink is on the cards one would install the Accelero S onto, but it's not designed to operate fanless.
Since the Accelero S should be used on other gfx cards too, not only on 1950 Pro / XT, which other cards have the VRM stuff in a different location and of different size, if AC doesn't provide a special VRM heatsink for that particular design, some gfx cards may get fried.

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 11:42 am

Hmmm, I dont find that design promising... As mentioned here viewtopic.php?t=36652

1) heat will rise back into the card.
2) the heatpipes are upside down. That is, usually heatpipes should have the hottest part lower. Because then the gas rises up to the cooler part, thus transferring heat. When the gas reaches the cooler part, it will condense, and flow back to the warm part, and the circle is closed.

For my own part, in a ATX case, there usually aint a lot of airflow below the GFX. So some tweak is needed. If one separated the upper chamber in a P180 into two, remove some PCI slot covers, and mount a Scythe Kama Bay at the front... Then the front intake fan would be dedicated to the GFX cooler.

nici · Post by **nici** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 2:04 pm

Modern heatpipes work pretty well in any direction. They have something inside them to make the liquid crawl back to the heat source.. magic powers. The heatpipes on my GPU and chipset coolers both point downwards, and they work just fine. I even bent the hetpipes on the chipset cooler to make it fit and it still works fine.

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 2:04 am

nici wrote:Modern heatpipes work pretty well in any direction. They have something inside them to make the liquid crawl back to the heat source.. magic powers. The heatpipes on my GPU and chipset coolers both point downwards, and they work just fine. I even bent the hetpipes on the chipset cooler to make it fit and it still works fine.

Hmmm. Maybe. But my Scythe Katana manual recommend to NOT mount it, so the heatpipes point downwards. It can of course be that Scythe dont use these new "magic" heatpipes...

An explanation could be that your current system dont pushes the cooler to their limits, thus it wont matter, if the efficiency is degraded somewhat, by letting the pipes point downwards?

What kind of "magic powers" are we taling about? As far as I know, the laws of nature regarding gas, condensation and gravity havent changed lately...

But even though. In a standard ATX case, there aint much airflow below the VGA card.

Bluefront · Post by **Bluefront** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 3:03 am

Nothing magic here.....it's just a "wick-like" effect. The inside of the pipe is not just air space. It's filled with a material that sort-of sponges the liquid from the hotter to the cooler end. The effect goes by different names....Scythe used to call it "heatlane".

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 3:35 am

Why are you saying its NOT magic......... next you will be saying that Santa doesnt exist.

AC might just be providing "stick-on" VRM coolers, just like the Zalman coolers which come with "stick-On" RAM coolers.

Andy

nick705 · Post by **nick705** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 9:30 am

Tzupy wrote: It is designed to take advantage of the air that usually flows between the gfx card and the case panel, which is a good thing.

This is the most interesting part of the design IMO - it's thinking in three dimensions, as opposed to simply "front-to-back", and intelligently utilises the width of a standard ATX case, ie the dead space on the opposite side from the mobo which also wastes airflow.

The back panel vent on something like a Solo/P150 next to the PCI slots looks well placed to supply intake air (assuming the exhaust fan was giving negative pressure) - you could block just the small portion which would be "above" the card, and you could also leave the slot directly under the card open. Once you'd done that there'd be nowhere for the incoming air to go except through the heatsink fins.

Still not much good for small or narrow cases, but you can't have everything...

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 4:32 am

UPDATE:

This can cool the 7950GT and Radeon X1950 XTX

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=37299

Andy

nici · Post by **nici** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 4:39 am

looks BIG

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 6:37 am

Its as massive as the heat output of those cards.

Andy

Tzupy · Post by **Tzupy** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 9:41 am

Do you mean: It's as massive as the heat output of those cards?

It's not that massive, weight wise IMO, but it needs to be so large to properly use case airflow.
I might get one for my 7900 GTX, but don't know yet how to cool the VRMs.