New VGA cooler from Aerocool

They make noise, too.

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Tephras
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New VGA cooler from Aerocool

Post by Tephras » Tue May 15, 2007 2:19 pm

This might be old news, I just saw it on Aerocool's site. They have released a new passive VGA cooler, VM-103, with the option to mount a 120mm fan on it.

goates
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Post by goates » Tue May 15, 2007 3:58 pm

Looks like it might just fit on a 7800GS AGP card. Here's hoping it isn't as pricey as the Aerocase Condor.

Max Slowik
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Post by Max Slowik » Tue May 15, 2007 8:08 pm

The real question is can you change the hight/width of the thing so that they can be stacked for SLI/CF setups?

This may require some investigation.

klankymen
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Post by klankymen » Tue May 15, 2007 8:33 pm

I doubt it... but I wonder if you could stack one of these on the bottom card, on top of a HR-03 on the top card.... or something like that.

anyways, pretty nice looking cooler

Tzupy
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Post by Tzupy » Wed May 16, 2007 2:39 am

IMO is has two drawbacks, one is the torque applied (but not as bad as the Condor) and the other one - the scrooges still use only two heatpipes.
However, since it can be positioned to take advantage of case airflow, it could work well for upto 60-65W of heat (like 7950GT or 1950Pro).

Sylph-DS
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Post by Sylph-DS » Wed May 16, 2007 3:19 am

Is it just me, or did they use pretty copper heatpipes and sink, but an aluminium block directly on the processor? :/

Tzupy
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Post by Tzupy » Wed May 16, 2007 3:24 am

No, the heatsink is Aluminium, but painted copper-ish. The paint is supposed to improve heat transfer to the air.

Steve_Y
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Post by Steve_Y » Wed May 16, 2007 3:30 am

Sylph-DS wrote:Is it just me, or did they use pretty copper heatpipes and sink, but an aluminium block directly on the processor? :/
Its predecessor the VM102 was the same.

It does seem a little back to front, especially with the greater weight of copper increasing the force on the card, but it didn't stop the VM102 from being one of the best passive coolers.

It was reasonably priced as well and hopefully that'll be true of this VGA cooler.

Sylph-DS
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Post by Sylph-DS » Wed May 16, 2007 3:43 am

Bah, although the heatsink design looks promising, the fact that they have only two heatpipes, and an aluminium block, scares me. I don't think it'll be much for high-end cards.

Just as well it looks like it won't work for a PC with a large CPU tower heatsink on most motherboards. In effect, this thing won't even fit in the average SPCR system.

bean1975
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Post by bean1975 » Wed May 16, 2007 5:03 am

The specification reads silly, what's this with "passive until Geforce 6" -- come on, you are telling me that a Geforce 6900 dissipates less than an 7600GS? Bleh.

openwheelformula1
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Post by openwheelformula1 » Wed May 16, 2007 6:57 am

it uses 2 3mm (or larger) screws. It won't fit my 8600GT.

Why is it so hard to find a passive cooler for my 8600GT that fits in a normal HTPC case...........

dfrost
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Post by dfrost » Wed May 16, 2007 6:59 am

Looks a lot like my modified VM-101. The caption under the photo describes the results compared to unmodified VM-101. My 9600 Pro is far from a "high end" GPU, so I'd be hesitant to make any claims in that regard.

I was a little worried about the torque applied to the mounting block and its skinny little arms, but haven't had any problem.

Lawrence Lee
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Post by Lawrence Lee » Wed May 16, 2007 7:16 am

I like the idea... it use spaces that would otherwise go to waste. You could have the heatsink pointing down and a full set of expansion cards underneath without any interference. What they should've done though is attached a couple of adjustable legs on it that can be lowered to the bottom of the case to provide additional support.

Max Slowik
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Post by Max Slowik » Wed May 16, 2007 11:05 pm

IMO is has two drawbacks, one is the torque applied (but not as bad as the Condor) and the other one - the scrooges still use only two heatpipes.
I dunno, the 8800-series cards all use a single heatpipe to good effect. An HD 2900 XT, with it's slightly-higher thermal envelope uses two.

GPUs all seem to be OK with running at or above 75 degrees, unlike CPUs, so they don't really take advantage of that extra cooling. And if you're after overclocking, well, watercooling is getting really easy and just as expensive as high-end air cooling.

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Post by thejamppa » Thu Aug 30, 2007 5:32 am

Well, pricing in here fits below Zalman's, under 30€'s. Pretty reasonably priced. I like the idea of mounting 120mm fan. Of course question of the torque makes me think ( as already pointed out ) but its still nice to see more passive VGA coolers in market.

a_punker
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Post by a_punker » Wed Nov 14, 2007 7:39 am

dfrost wrote:Looks a lot like my modified VM-101. The caption under the photo describes the results compared to unmodified VM-101. My 9600 Pro is far from a "high end" GPU, so I'd be hesitant to make any claims in that regard.

I was a little worried about the torque applied to the mounting block and its skinny little arms, but haven't had any problem.
wow - you BENT your heatpipes? did you use a tiny pipe spring? former? did you heat it first?

do people go around bending their heatpipes a lot? I know when i've done plumbing at home my work always looks a bit 'creative' when i don't use a pipe bending tool.

cmthomson
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Post by cmthomson » Tue Nov 20, 2007 4:19 pm

a_punker wrote:wow - you BENT your heatpipes?
The heat pipes used on most recent coolers are rather soft copper pipes that can be bent by hand as needed. My VGA cooler got bent during shipping, and it was a simple matter to put it back to square.

Jokoto
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Post by Jokoto » Tue Nov 20, 2007 4:58 pm

I wish somebody made a heatsink somewhat like this, one that would fit even with a tall tower CPU heatsink installed. Downwards mounting of the VM-103 is a no-go as well in microATX cases, so why not place the heatsink at the level of the graphics card? The fin section would then be a little over the card and mostly under, but not too far to require more space than a microATX board has. Maybe four heatpipes, with two going up and two down. If you had a vent in the side panel right there and a negative pressure design, it could be fanless, and perhaps there might be enough clearance for a fan as well. I'd buy one like that.

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